Manny sat at his desk. The others took seats as well. Tobias’s brow was furrowed, his gaze distant. Juan had seen his wife’s name on the list, but not their children and grandchildren, who lived in Ashley Oaks.
Curtis, who also looked pale and tired, walked in and took a seat near the door. Juan felt bad for him. The rookie on the force was the last man standing. It couldn’t be easy on him.
The mayor leaned back in his chair. He picked up a pen from his desktop and studied it for a second, then looked up. “Well, I called all of you in here to talk about the present situation. Peggy, are you sure you want Cody here?”
Peggy gently tried to pry her child off, but he only grabbed on tighter. “He won’t budge.”
The mayor nodded. “Okay. Travis says Katie has a fierce fever. He told me in no uncertain terms he plans to stay with her until she’s better or, if she is infected, to make sure she is at peace.”
“He has it bad for her. Too bad she’s gay,” Juan said grumpily. Travis was his best friend, and Juan had seen him fall for unattainable women more than once during their time in Houston.
His mother smacked him upside the head again, and he knew he deserved it.
The mayor blinked. “Oh, then Jenni…” He sat still for a moment, his fingers twisting the pen. “Oh, that makes sense now, how’s she acting.” He shrugged. “Anyway, we need to prepare for their return.”
Tobias slapped the palms of his hands against his knees and leaned forward. “How do we do that? The infected are filling the street. Most of our fellow townspeople are out there. What we need to do is get ahold of the army and get them out here to treat those people!”
“They’re dead. You can’t treat them,” Juan said. He couldn’t believe they were still having this conversation. Some people took denial way too far.
“That is a ridiculous statement. The dead do not just get up, become rabid, and attack people. It has to be a virus, like the CDC said,” Tobias said firmly.
“They can’t be alive,” Curtis said softly.
“Why do you say that?” Tobias turned a fierce look on him.
Curtis shrank under it, but replied, “Because some of them are dragging their innards on the road.”
“Adrenaline does strange things to people. If they have large amounts coursing their system like the CDC said in the beginning—”
“Toby, the CDC took it back and called them the reanimated dead,” the mayor pointed out.
“Which is a fancy term for zombies,” Juan said. “We are dealing with zombies. You know, the living dead. They want to eat us. I thought we all knew that by now.” Juan shook his head and folded his arms over his chest. People were so stupid.
“I do not believe we should give in to hysteria and superstition,” Tobias responded.
Then Peggy’s son started to cry, loud and desperate. She tried to shush him.
“Daddy tried to eat us! He kept banging on the window!” The boy was near hysteria. “His guts were hanging out!”
Tobias flinched and said, “Maybe he shouldn’t be here.”
“He’s in this, too, Toby,” Rosie said softly. “You can’t shield a child from this.”
Peggy pulled her son into her lap and kissed him on the forehead. He continued to cry softly, his tiny body shivering.
Curtis hunched in on himself, with his arms folded high on his chest. “Let’s get back on topic. We need those guns. We can’t keep killing them with spears.”
“Yeah, blades aren’t much help with these kinds of zombies if they get in,” Juan said morosely. “The handbook did not have running zombies in it. This is a whole other ball game, but the basics are the same. We need to make this place as safe as possible and think before we act. We missed out on the whole being-prepared thing, so we gotta do the best we can now.”
“How do we get Travis back in? That’s the question,” the mayor said softly.
“Maybe someone on this list has the experience we need,” Rosie suggested.
“Like someone has experience with zombies,” Curtis muttered.
“The infected people out there deserve better than to be hunted down and murdered,” Tobias declared. “We’ve been murderers for days now.”
“They are not infected!” Curtis’s voice almost sounded shrill. “They are eating people, Tobias!”
Tobias’s eyes were swimming with tears, but he fought to keep his voice steady. “My family needs help, not to be butchered.”
“They were already butchered! They are dead!” Curtis’s face looked younger, now that he appeared close to cracking.
Juan stood up and tried to break some of the tension. “Look. We got construction equipment. We got that much. Now we need to get creative.”
“Build a corral,” the little boy said.
Juan looked at him. “What, kid?”
“His name is Cody,” Peggy said softly.
“Build a corral. Like I do with my Legos. When Daddy and I—” He started to blubber, but pushed on. “—played with my cowboys and my Legos, we built corrals for the cows.”
The mayor looked at Juan. “A corral?”
“Fuck me!” Juan exclaimed, and took a step back.
“Juan!”
“Sorry, Mom. I think we can actually do that … yeah … From the mouth of babes … from the mouth of babes!” Juan didn’t wait to talk out the idea; he headed out the door.
Loca was standing just outside the room, spying. “I want to help,” Jenni said, her big, dark eyes so beautiful and so nuts.
“No,” he answered, blocking her way.
“I can help!” She faked trying to dive around him to the left, then darted to the right, slipping past him.
“Hey! You can’t help. You’re loca,” he declared, snagging her around the waist.
“Maybe, but I can still help. I have to help!”
She grabbed his arm and they stared at each other for a long moment. She was nuts, yeah, but she looked determined.
“How?”
“I used to play with my kids with Legos all the time and build all sorts of—”
“We’re not using Legos,” Juan pointed out.
“Yeah, I know that!” Jenni stomped her foot. “I’m saying that I know how to make plans to make things work. My kids and I built entire cities with Legos.”
“Me, too,” Cody said.
The mayor was still twisting his pen in his hands. “Listen to what they have to say. It won’t hurt.”
Juan hesitated. Well, he actually wasn’t sure how he would build this corral, was he?
“Okay, fine.”
“I have some Legos!” Cody ran down the hall.
Juan looked at everyone gathered around him. They were all loco, he decided. Hell, the world was loco. And for some reason, this made him smile. “Fine, fine, the kid has a good idea.”
An hour later, on a conference table, Jenni and Cody had constructed the basic outline of the fort, complete with the wall, the buildings, and the surrounding streets. Two Legos stacked together was the hotel, and a string of long narrow Legos created the perimeter. Jason had come in and started to help; his dog was lying down under the table. Juan sat nearby, flipping through a magazine and not really paying attention.
“So the zombies are all here,” Jenni said, putting tiny little Lego men in the street in front of the wall.
Just back from a trip to the perimeter, Curtis said, “They’re all in the front, spread across from here to here.” He pointed, and Jenni rearranged the Lego men.
“It’s like they feel that is our weakest point,” the older kid said, and the dog whined.
Cody, now looking more like a little kid than like a scared rabbit, picked up a stack of several Legos and made a big noise as he dropped it between two buildings. He made very effective sounds of zombies being crushed. Now that he was playing, he was having as much fun as any little boy with his toys.
Juan and Curtis both leaned forward to watch Cody. Curtis lifted his eyebrows. Cody picked up another
stack of Legos and smashed it down between two other buildings. Now all the fake zombies were trapped between the wall and two large barriers that hemmed them into a T-shaped area.
Jenni clapped her hands and high-fived the little boy as Juan and Curtis studied the configuration more closely.
Cody took a plastic Godzilla from his bag of toys and made it stomp the zombies into the ground, but the idea was already firm in Juan’s mind.
Jenni looked up at the men. “We can do this, can’t we?”
“We can have the zombies all penned in here,” Curtis said, “and Travis can come in from over here, where there won’t be any.”
“But how do we get them into the fort?” Jenni frowned at the tiny, colorful town.
Cody laughed and picked up one of his Matchbox trucks. “Like this.” He swung his arm like it was a crane and set the truck down in the fort.
Juan grabbed the kid and hugged him. “You’ve been watching us set up the site. Maybe we can’t lift the truck in, but if Travis and Katie load everything onto a pallet, we can use the crane to lift the load—and them—over the wall to safety.”
Jenni snuggled the little boy and kissed him. “You’re a genius!”
“I just like big trucks,” Cody answered, and plowed the zombies down with the toy truck.
Juan grabbed a piece of paper and started drawing. He felt Jenni’s gaze on him and looked up.
“We’re all in this together, you know,” she said.
“You’re still loca,” he told her.
She grinned at him, and much to his disgust, he smiled back.
2.
Threshold
Jenni sat at the edge of her cot, frowning. Jason was asleep, snoring slightly. Jack sat on the floor near her stepson’s cot, staring at her quizzically.
Glancing over at Katie’s empty cot, Jenni shivered in her nightgown. It was several sizes too big, but it was all she could find in the donation box for the needy. Pushing her dark hair out of her face, she rose and walked to the door.
Jack immediately got up and followed her. She rested her hand on his head and smiled down at the German shepherd. He was a good and loyal friend.
Slipping out quietly, she moved down the narrow stairwell, her bare feet not making a sound. Distantly, she could hear the zombies moaning. The living had kept well out of view of the dead all day, and now the zombies were just standing around, moaning. Juan had been right that staying out of sight kept the zombies calmer, but they hadn’t gone away. And while most were just standing there, a few kept pounding on the trucks until their hands were a bloody pulp.
Jenni shivered as she thought of Katie looking like one of them—empty, lifeless, a mere husk with the spark gone from her eyes. Jenni had been all over the place emotionally today. Juan had pissed her off by calling her loca, so later she had put on her best I’m just a pretty girl persona to get him to lay off her so she could watch him plan. She knew her initial reaction to the word that Katie was very sick and possibly infected had made her seem crazy in the eyes of some of the people, but she didn’t really care.
Even now, the thought of Katie not being here was too much to bear. Katie had been the first good thing in Jenni’s new life. Katie made her feel safe. Katie made her feel like she was okay. Normal, not a dysfunctional, battered housewife blundering through life. Katie was everything Jenni had ever wanted to be.
Katie had given her a second chance—a second chance at a new life in a very different world. Okay, all the rules had changed, but Jenni had found that she could actually function in this world. Maybe that made her loca, but she didn’t care.
She brushed a tear away as she walked to the communication center. Curtis sat there, still in his uniform, looking worn out and shell-shocked. He had washed out his clothes and they clung damply to his skin, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Avoid Houston at all costs,” a voice was saying over one of the speakers. “Stay on the minor roads. I’ll meet up with you near Texarkana.”
“Come back again, good buddy,” another voice said.
Curtis noticed her presence and looked up at her wearily.
“Who are they?”
“Truckers. Looking for a place to hole up.”
“Did you tell them about us?”
“Too far out. Too little gas. A few may make it here in a day or two, but those things…” He shook his head. “We have to figure out how to make it safe for more people to come here.”
Jenni stepped into the room, Jack pressing past her to go greet Curtis. The doggy love actually brought a smile to Curtis’s face, and he leaned down to rub the German shepherd’s ears.
“Anything new on Katie?”
Curtis sighed. “Still real sick. Real sick.”
Jenni sat down on a cold metal folding chair and clasped her hands tightly together. “What do they think it is?”
“Travis is afraid it’s the zombie sickness,” Curtis answered, averting his gaze.
Jenni moaned. “But he’s not sure.”
Curtis agreed with a slight bob of his head. “Not sure.”
Jenni looked at the little communications center, then said, “Can I sit here and wait? Maybe they’ll call?”
Curtis returned his gaze to her and she gave him her best little girl lost look. He nodded. “Sure. You can stay.”
Jenni smiled at him and pulled her knees up to her chin, her feet resting on the cold metal seat. “Turn up the CB. Maybe someone is out there that we can talk to.”
Curtis gave her a shy smile. “Okay.” He leaned over and turned it up. Jenni watched him, memorizing his actions.
The first chance she got, she would find out what was really happening to Katie.
3.
Beyond
Travis sat in darkness. The only illumination came from a small night-light on the far side of the room. Katie lay curled on the bed, her blond hair in disarray around her face. She looked waxen, pale, and frightfully drawn. On the dresser next to him was a revolver. Ralph had instructed him precisely on how to handle it. And Nerit had, intently, insisted that he could not falter, he could not flinch. If Katie rose from that bed as anything other than a living, breathing human being, he had to put her out of her misery.
Rubbing his hands together, he let out a low sigh. This was hard. Very hard. To sit here and wait for this woman to fade from the living world into the domain of the dead just so he could put a bullet between her eyes seemed a cruel fate, considering the absolute joy he had felt in meeting her just two days earlier.
It had been one of the oddest moments of his life. He had just looked at her and known her. He’d felt that he should already know her name and that they shared a past. He had felt strongly if he opened his mouth, he’d say her name, even though he didn’t know it. But somehow he knew her. Even when she had mentioned her wife—and that had kinda thrown him just a bit—in a way, he had known. He couldn’t help but wonder if they had crossed paths long ago in Houston.
It was odd, considering that Jenni, with her long, flowing raven hair, pale skin, and luminous eyes, was everything he had ever found physically desirable about a woman. In fact, she looked startlingly similar to his ex-fiancée, Clair. But no, it had been the tall blonde with the long, lean body, intense features, and intelligent gaze who had instantly grabbed his attention. He had even noticed how her eyes turned up slightly at the ends, speaking of Nordic blood in her genes.
I know you, he wanted to say. And she had seemed to want to say it back to him.
Raised a good Protestant, he had never believed much in miracles or the mystical. But he did now. Zombies pretty much settled that argument. They weren’t natural; he knew that much. But seeing Katie and knowing she was important to not only him, but also to all those in the fort—that surpassed anything his logical mind had ever grasped before. And now he sat in this dark room, listening to her breathe, waiting for the end.
At times she called out softly for Lydia. Sometimes for her father. Once or twice for Jenni.
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“Please,” she had begged Travis during a lucid moment. “Take care of Jenni.”
He knew he would take care of Jenni, and Jason, and all the others. For Katie and her memory. She had endured more than he had, seen things he could not imagine. His loss had been a Dear John letter left on his pillow. Hers had been seeing Lydia as one of those things.
There was a sharp intake of breath from the bed … then nothing.
Tears, hot and angry, filled his eyes and he picked up the gun.
It was time.
Travis endured in the darkened bedroom, gazing down at the gun. His tears were fierce in his eyes, and his anger burned even hotter in his throat.
He heard the bed creak and, through his lashes, saw her sit up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and lifted the gun.
“Why?”
He blinked, and tears fell down his cheeks. “Katie?”
“Yeah?”
Travis flipped on the overhead light and she sat blinking in the sudden brightness. She still looked pale and feeble, but her eyes were bright. Clear. Alive.
“Oh, God, Katie! I thought—”
She kept blinking in the bright light, shielding her face with her hand. “I told you, nothing bit me.”
“Katie, you’ve been so sick.” Travis looked down at the gun and set it upon the dresser. As the heavy weight left his hand, a heavier weight lifted from his spirit. With great relief, he walked toward her.
For a crazed split second, he saw her with empty eyes, mouth opened in a scream, rushing toward him; then the vision was gone and Katie was giving him a look that said pretty much that she thought he was nuts.
“Sorry about the gun, but you were burning up and we couldn’t get the fever down for the longest time. …”
“That’s what I get for not getting the flu shot,” Katie pushed a hand through her hair, wincing at the grubbiness of it. “Ugh, I must be a sight.”
Travis laughed and impulsively leaned down to hug her. After just two days of illness, she felt so tiny and frail. She was already slim, and the drain on her body resources had been powerful.
She awkwardly hugged him back, then tried to stand up, but was unable to get to her feet. “Okay, I guess I was really sick.” She fell back onto the bed, looking a little woozy.
As The World Dies Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 17
