Love in the Time of the Dead

by Tera Shanley

  Mitchell glared at him through angry, slitted eyes that had darkened to the color of volcanic rock. “That’s a fantastic idea.” He turned and stomped back up the trail.

  Crap. She looked between Eloise’s limp figure and Mitchell’s quickly receding back. Where was she needed most?

  “I’ll take care of her,” said the guard who slumped as if he felt miserable and inadequate. “We have reinforcements on their way as well as Dr. Mackey. They’ll be here any second.”

  Eloise lay peacefully in the grass, pale, but otherwise uninjured. Laney’s instincts warred over which friend to protect. “You let anything happen to her, and you’ll regret it. That’s a promise.” She gave him what she hoped was a Vanessa-worthy death glare and sprinted after Mitchell.

  “You can’t go talk to Mel like this, Mitchell. She’ll kick you out of here,” she pleaded. He hadn’t slowed his pace in any way. “You have to at least wait until you calm down.”

  Silence.

  “Mitchell! I don’t want you to leave,” she admitted as she skidded to a stop.

  Mitchell slowed and then stopped. He sighed as if it would expel all of the anger and emotional turmoil from his body.

  A small group of guards and Dr. Mackey ran up a nearby trail toward the colony gates where Eloise and the guards were. Mitchell glared at them and then blazed his own trail through the woods. She followed.

  He eventually found a place that seemed far enough from civilization to afford him the peace he sought. He sat against a tree, back to the rough bark and a seat of pine needles to cushion him. She chose a tree directly across from him and waited. Mitchell wasn’t an easy man to talk to when he was angry. If she just waited him out, he would eventually talk or just get over whatever was ailing him.

  With the birdsong and chilly breeze and distant river waters as a calming music, she relaxed into the tree trunk. The rays of late daylight filtered through the thick branches of the mountain trees, and she searched in vain for the bird that was making the soundtrack to their rare moment of peace. Her body complained as her adrenaline wore off and her side burned with a heat that hadn’t been there earlier. She must have pulled at her injuries in the scuffle.

  She pulled her shirt up to check on her half-healed Dead bite and noticed the four cuts Dr. Mackey had made. The butterfly bandages had pulled apart, and all but one were open and bleeding. Dr. Mackey had said he needed to take deep samples so he could test all layers of her tissue, and they were taking longer to close up than she had expected.

  “What are those?” Mitchell said, finally breaking his silence.

  His voice startled her. “Oh, they are just the skin samples doc took off me a couple of days ago. I guess I pulled them open.”

  He scooted closer and examined them. “Here, let me,” he said, swatting her hand away from the bandages. “These look really deep.”

  “All in the name of science.”

  He reattached the bandages as best he could and sat back on his heels. “I knew you would be undergoing some tests, but I guess I just thought they would be taking some of your blood. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

  She shrugged. It was just an unfortunate and inconvenient part of her life now.

  “When do you go back?”

  “Dr. Mackey wants me to come in for some more samples tomorrow morning. He says fresh samples are the best.”

  “I’ll meet you there. You shouldn’t be going through that alone.”

  She was touched. And speechless. In rare moments, Mitchell surprised her with his thoughtfulness. “Okay. I’m going at eight.”

  He stood and held out his hand. “Let’s go eat. Rampaging makes me hungry.”

  She stifled a laugh. “Yeah, I was sure you were going to kill someone.”

  He smirked. “I’m not going to lie. The thought crossed my mind.”

  Mitchell ate and left dinner early to catch a few hours of sleep for another night shift. He was likely trying for a bigger credit at the general store with all the extra shifts. Guist was also working that night, so he disappeared with Mitchell, and Eloise was still recovering in Dr. Mackey’s office. Finn, Sean, and Adrianna were probably eating filet mignon at Mel’s place, so she ate quickly and left for her room.

  Someone had been there. The latch to her door hung loosely, swaying gently in the breeze. She made it a habit to shut it firmly into place every time she left, so that was her first clue. She threw the door open with a handgun at the ready. Her room was empty and untouched, other than a small package on her bed.

  She closed the door behind her and tore the brown paper and string off gently. Inside were three small bottles of homemade shampoo that smelled exactly like the kind she’d used at the Denver colony. Underneath was a book.

  “The Art of War,” she read aloud. Sean had placed a handwritten letter inside the front flap of the book.

  I do believe I owed you some of Mona’s handmade shampoo.

  See you at dinner tomorrow.

  Sean

  She held the letter for a moment longer as she stared vacantly at the wall over her bed. What a confounding man. Her emotions churned as she struggled for a way to feel about the gift.

  She put the shampoo with the rest of her shower things and took the book and a blanket out to the porch. Two wooden rocking chairs graced the end, and she cuddled into one, propping her feet up on the railing and draping the blanket across her legs. She used the rest of the daylight to read. She so appreciated tiny, rare moments like these. Life in such an unforgiving world could be unkind if ill-managed, but despite all odds, she still lived and breathed to enjoy a moment of peace and undiluted tranquility.

  The fact that Laney wasn’t a morning person would never change. The doctor making an appointment so early in the morning on her day off just seemed unfair. She knew he didn’t mean to, or even think about it, but she grumbled soft curses for him anyway. After she dragged herself out of bed and up the hill to shower, she stumbled onto the doctor’s front porch about an hour late. If Mitchell minded her tardiness he would have kicked her door down much sooner. As it was, he was fast asleep in a sturdy wooden chair on the doctor’s front porch. He looked exhausted, but the planes of his face seemed relaxed in his slumber. Laney studied him until the hidden, tender places in her heart began to bother her. It was Mitchell. She had to get a grip.

  She gently shook his arm until his eyes opened and fell on her. He smiled sleepily and stretched. He didn’t even grace her with a single grievance about her belated arrival. She squinted at him suspiciously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe he was so tired he didn’t know what time it was.

  “You ready?” he asked in a voice deep with fatigue.

  “As I’ll ever be,” she said. She led the way into Dr. Mackey’s office.

  Mitchell sat in a chair beside her as Dr. Mackey pulled the samples from her flesh. She didn’t watch, but Mitchell observed the procedure with frank curiosity. He asked a constant string of questions, and the sound of his voice was comforting. It gave her mind something more than pain to focus on. After the doctor was finished drawing blood from the crease at her elbow, Mitchell helped her to a row of cots in the corner of the recovery room. She felt faint, as she always did after having her blood drawn.

  Dr. Mackey showed Mitchell one of the samples he had just taken under a microscope, and the sound of their quiet conversation lulled her back to sleep.

  She woke with a start from a dream she couldn’t quite remember. Mitchell was nowhere to be seen, but Dr. Mackey and two other men were mulling over what looked like clumps of odd shaped cells thrown up on a wall by a slide projector.

  “Your friend already left,” Dr. Mackey told her as she sat up and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “He said he had to get some stuff done.”

  “Oh.” Was that a twinge of disappointment? “All right. Well, I’m going to head out. See you next time, Doc.” She waved her goodbye and left the office to find the day sunny and bordering on warm. Her stomach rumbled
loudly, and she looked around self-consciously to make sure no one had heard. She had skipped breakfast in her haste to get to Dr. Mackey’s, and it was already time for lunch.

  She hopped off the stairs and headed up a trail that would lead her to the mess hall.

  “Baaaah!” Mitchell yelled as he jumped from behind a huge tree trunk.

  “What the hell, Mitchell?” she exclaimed as she fought the urge to viciously kick him in the kneecap and/or punch him in the esophagus.

  “Where are you headed?” he asked when he had stopped laughing enough to talk.

  “I’m starving,” she said shortly.

  “I’ve got that covered. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and led her onto another trail.

  “Wait. Where are we going?”

  He turned and looked at her with eyes fever-bright with excitement. “Hunting.”

  She tried to keep the smile out of her voice. “Hunting? Like what kind of hunting? Bunny hunting or Dead hunting?”

  “Maybe a little of both if we’re lucky. I grabbed our lunch from the mess hall already. Where is your Mini?”

  “Back in my room.”

  “Go grab your arsenal and your pack and meet me at the front gates, the ones where we came in.”

  She looked at him dubiously. It sounded too good to be true. “Are you sure they’re just going to let us walk out of here for the day?”

  “I already got it cleared. Mel specified that I could take one other person with me. She just didn’t specify who.”

  “So she meant Guist but you are getting around her wording.”

  “Yep,” he said proudly. “We’re going to have to do a bite check again when we get back, though. Are you sure you still want to go?”

  She mulled it over for a few seconds. She had worked hard that week, and after the emotional roller coaster she had been on lately, going hunting with Mitchell sounded downright exciting. “Worth it,” she said, grinning. “See you in a few.” She scurried off to her cabin to grab her things.

  She tried not to look too suspicious as she half-walked, half-ran to her room, but the thought of an adventure was too enthralling after days of the steady and stable schedule kept by the colony. She wasn’t used to it yet, actually finding it a nice change most of the time, but the restless corners of her heart hungered for deviation. And maybe for a little trouble too.

  Mitchell talked to the gate guards easily as she approached them. It seemed he had made fast friends with many of the armed members of Dead Run River. Not surprising. He was a notoriously happy person, a prankster, a charmer, and though he had a temper, it usually came out for good reason and on people who more or less deserved it. People always flocked to Mitchell at the colonies they visited, and she was in awe of his easy way with them. She, on the other hand, tended to offend everyone she came into contact with, no matter how much she tried to secretly learn by watching him.

  Mitchell grinned when he spotted her and made introductions to the three men at the gate. She had never met them before and they stayed to chat for a few minutes before he pulled her over to an ATV that was parked beside the gate.

  “We’re going in style, Landry,” he said as he hopped on and turned the key.

  The little engine roared to life, and she pushed her Mini to her back so she could better hang on to him. The guards waved and opened the gate just enough for them to squeeze through, and she threw her arms around Mitchell’s chest in time to hold on for dear life. On a spectrum of safe to reckless drivers, Mitchell bordered on terrifying. He wasn’t much safer with her on the back, but probably because he trusted her to hang on. If he was anything, he wasn’t one to invite another to change him, so complaining about his speed was a fruitless endeavor.

  They were laughing breathlessly by the time the gates had disappeared behind them. If she hadn’t been worried about falling right off the back, she would have raised her arms above her head and let them catch the wind. The freedom was jubilating. Out in the forest, there were no rules but survival.

  They stopped for lunch soon after they left the colony and ate it up in a tree for old time’s sake. Mitchell had insisted she keep her tree climbing muscles limber, so they picked a pine and hoisted themselves up the crowded branches before eating the sizeable spread Mitchell had grabbed from the mess hall. They watched as dark clouds drifted slowly over the mountains, and she buttoned up her jacket to protect her from the chill that crept in.

  “Looks like bad weather,” she observed.

  “Smells like it, too,” Mitchell agreed from the branch he straddled.

  He had always been more sensitive to the smells of earth and changing weather. Her nose had been more accustomed to death.

  He gestured with his sandwich to the covered openings in her skin. “How does your side feel?”

  “Fine. Honestly, I don’t really notice them unless the bandages pull.” She lifted up the edge of her shirt to check the four old samples and three fresh ones just above them. “Maybe I’m just getting used to pain.”

  “Probably. Come on. Let’s get some hunting done before these clouds open up on us.”

  The day was spent joyriding. They weren’t successful in their rabbit hunt, which was not surprising, as they put very little effort into it. They did, however, get into it with some Deads. They found two groups, one with three Deads and a larger band with seven. Both aggregations were headed straight in the direction of Dead Run River. The smaller group stumbled upon them while they were at the edge of a stream discussing whether or not to fish. She smelled them early, and she and Mitchell were both prepared and waiting. One shot for each was not much of a risk for seasoned fighters. The larger group was a different story.

  When the distant stench of Deads hit her, Mitchell pointed the ATV they were riding in the direction she told him. When they saw how large the band of Deads was, she was prepared to pull off of their trail and escape. Mitchell had something else in mind.

  He pulled around them, let them get a good whiff of human, and took off laughing.

  She looked behind her at the group that was sprinting clumsily to keep up with the meal on wheels. “Thanks a lot, Mitchell. You know they are going to eat me first, right?”

  He chuckled. “Better get to shooting then.”

  And shoot she did, though not well. She was turned the wrong way and bouncing this way and that as he maneuvered the ATV out of the groaning Deads’ reach. In a situation that shouldn’t have been funny in any way, she and Mitchell found themselves in a fit of laughter every time she missed.

  “Come on, Landry. A few days in a colony and you forget how to shoot?”

  “I swear,” she muttered as she pulled the trigger and missed again. “You have the worst man plans.”

  When the last Dead had fallen and no more followed, he pointed the four-wheeler toward Dead Run River just as a few flurries of early season snowflakes floated down around them.

  They had been right in their assumption that bad weather was coming, but they weren’t in any way prepared for the storm that hit them when they reentered Dead Run River gates.

  Chapter Sixteen

  SEAN BARRELED DOWN ON THEM like an avenging angel. “Are you out of your minds? No! Don’t even answer that. I know you’re out of your minds.”

  “Sean, stop yelling. What’re you talking about?” Laney asked, trying desperately to pacify his barely checked anger.

  Mitchell stared at Sean with his head cocked to the side as if he thought the man had taken a swan dive off the deep end of sanity.

  “You,” Sean accused, jabbing his finger at Mitchell. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened out there? What would even possess you to drag Laney beyond the gates, unprotected?”

  Mitchell leaned against the four-wheeler and shrugged. “She wasn’t unprotected. She has her weapons, and if she got in a jam, we’d get out of it together. Like we’ve done a hundred times.”

  “Uh, Sean,” she said patiently, “Mitchell didn’t drag me out of here. I wanted to go
. We had permission.”

  “You don’t have permission, Laney!” Sean yelled in exasperation.

  “So…what?” she asked. “I’m a prisoner here, then?”

  “No, Laney. But you’re the one who wanted to stay here. You have to mind the rules. You and your entire team don’t get that. Obey the rules, stay in the colony. Break the rules, and this colony can’t offer you protection anymore.” Sean stepped forward menacingly and lowered his voice. “And whether you like it or not, you need protecting. And this guy doesn’t cut it.”

  “Hey, whoa, whoa,” Mitchell said, sliding his arm between her and Sean. He pulled her back from Sean’s angry countenance. “I can protect her just fine. I’ve saved her life too many times to count, and she’s done the same for me.” Mitchell stepped into the space he had created between them and glared at Sean accusingly. “Why do you care so much what Laney does and doesn’t do anyway?”

  Sean shook his head and didn’t answer.

  “Why?” Mitchell barked out.

  “Because she’s the cure!” Sean blasted. “She’s the cure, I know she is. She could change the tide for our survival, and if you get her killed we’re all doomed. Don’t you get that?”

  At his admission, her heart sank to the soles of her boots. She put her hand gently over her mouth to hide the tremor in her lips. Stepping around Mitchell, she walked away from them. Let them have their pissing contest. She’d rather die than let Sean see how much his insensitive statement hurt her. Why had he kissed her? Just to make her seem more desirable to Adam? How could he toy with her in such a way and feel nothing? Nothing more for her than a mad scientist caring for his lab rat.

  She ran for her room, and once inside the safety of her own space, she let herself go as a part of her heart pulled painfully further from Sean. It was weak. She shouldn’t cry for a man who didn’t deserve her tears, but she’d been ready, for the first time in years, to have a relationship, and the vulnerability of that revelation was overwhelming. She didn’t know whether it was the loss of Jarren, or of finally finding Adam only to realize he was settled with another woman. She didn’t know if it was either, or both, or none at all. Maybe it had just been too long since she’d cared for a man in such a way and her body and soul needed it to find some sort of balance, to fill some gaping hole she didn’t know existed.