Odium II: The Dead Saga

by Claire C. Riley

  Emily shoves away from the table and I roll my eyes and smirk even more. “I can’t believe you just called me a brat!” She stomps away from the table and Alek trails after her with a sigh.

  She’s not my problem anymore, she’s Alek’s. They’re each other’s problem. As they storm off into the kitchen, having their nightly argument about something stupid, I realize how bizarre all this is. I mean this is it, this is the end of days, and yet I’m sitting here with Emily and Alek eating chili con carne and listening to Emily scold Alek like they’re husband and wife. As far as the end of the world goes, this isn’t too bad. I think I finally get why Zee and James want to protect it so much.

  It’s not just the safety of this place, though of course that’s a huge thing—I’m not stupid enough to not realize that—but it’s the life people are building for themselves. The fact that everyone is actually living instead of just surviving.

  I never thought that would happen, and yet here I am. I’d like to think all the pain and torment I’ve been through was worth all of this, but I refuse to think about the past anymore. The future is what I have to look toward—what we all have to look toward now. There’s no going back anymore.

  *

  Being on guard duty with Mathew is always fun. After leaving Alek and Emily to kiss and make up—literally—I head over to my station. I hate guard duty, but it’s what helps keep this place secure and running. There’s always four people on duty, since the base is so huge. Most of it has been closed off and made secure, but there are constant checks on the fencing surrounding the place—even the places that aren’t used anymore. We begin our walk around the base, starting at medical and working our way around past the gym and toward the old library. Next to the library is an old cinema that used to play movies for the kids, but it’s not been used in so long that it’s hard to even imagine ever watching a movie again.

  “I used to love these old Jackie Chan movies when I was a kid. My dad used to let me stay up late and watch them with him all the time. Mom never liked it, always worried I’d end up getting into fights and things like that. Always thought I’d end up in prison or something. She’d hit the roof if she saw me now with this thing.” Mathew raises his crossbow to the air and laughs quietly to himself. “Walking around like a regular bad-ass.”

  “I’m sure she’d be real proud of you. You’re helping people, protecting them,” I say, kicking a stone. It scoots across the ground and bounces off the side of the old cinema.

  “Do you ever wonder what happened to your family?” he asks and kicks a stone against the building too.

  I shrug. “Nope. My mother and father died a long time ago.” I think back to Ben’s parents and their cabin that we were heading to so many years ago.

  “I think about mine a lot. My dad was a cop, real tough bastard,” Mathew laughs. “But he turned to butter around my mom.” Even in the moonlight I can see him smile.

  “I’m sure that they’re holed up somewhere safe. Your dad wouldn’t have let anything happen to her,” I reply.

  Mathew looks at me and sees my comments for what they are, but he doesn’t say anything. He smiles and we keep on walking. In the distance I can hear the sound of deaders at the fence and we follow the sound around the back of the one of the old office buildings. There’s three there, though one is so emaciated it looks more like a skeleton. They can’t get in and seem to be stuck in a particularly bad patch of mud. It clings to their ankles and legs and stops them from moving on.

  I look up and along the fence, seeing a little too much sway for my liking in the metal. The winter has been bad and has soaked the ground right through, and with the recent storms we’ve had, it’s growing too soft to support the fence posts. This area is secure for now, but I’m guessing it won’t be long before it’s going to need fortifying with something. I make a mental note to tell Zee or James about it tomorrow. For tonight, the best we can do is kill the deaders.

  I grab my machete from the holder at my waist and walk toward the fence. One of the deaders leans forward in its eagerness to get to me. It stands at near enough a right angle, since it’s legs are still stuck in the mud, and claws at the fence. Of course, all of their growls and weird gargly throat noises increase once they see us.

  Mathew takes a knife from his pocket and as I dispense of the first deader, he coaxes one of the others to get closer to the fence so he can finish it off. Neither of us can reach the third, meaning tomorrow we’re going to have to head out of the base and find it. Deaders attract deaders, and it’s a battle to clear the area of them as much as we do. The only thing that gives me any hope is that with each season that passes they decay more and more until, like this last one here, they are nothing but a pile of walking bones. Sure, they can still kill you, but they’re also easier to kill.

  “I don’t like leaving one out there,” Mathew says. He puts his knife away and raises his crossbow, but even as good a shot as he is, at this angle, in this lighting, I can’t see how he can make the kill.

  “You’ll never make that,” I say matter-of-factly.

  Mathew grins at me and stares down the length of his bow. He breathes steadily for a couple of seconds and then fires. The arrow slices through the air, through the small gap in the fence, and jams itself home in the deader’s skull.

  “Damn,” I laugh. “Glad I didn’t make a bet on that.”

  “Lost my arrow, though.” He laughs lightly. Things are always easy with Mathew: he never takes anything too seriously, which is why I like being on duty with him. And since I requested to not be with Michael and I can’t be with Mikey, it’s meant us spending a lot of time together. He’s a good guy, and as I said, doesn’t take things too seriously.

  “You can get it tomorrow.” I sheath my machete after wiping it clean of the deader gore and we keep on walking.

  “I’m going to be teaching lessons on how to shoot when the weather gets better. I can teach you too.”

  “I’d like that,” I reply with a smile.

  When we get back to the medic building, we begin our tour again. As the rain patters down on us, Mathew talks to me about his comic books. Yet again it was another thing that his dad used to love and his mom hated, and he reminisces about his dad sneaking him comic books when his mom wasn’t looking.

  I can’t help but smile at his stories, getting lost in the animated way he talks about his family. Yet I also can’t help but be glad I never had any other family—other than Ben—because I don’t know how I’d cope with not knowing what happened to them. Not knowing if they were alive or dead, or if they were the walking dead. Part of the pain these people are going through is not knowing, and I can sympathize with that.

  My thoughts return, as they have every day since I got back from our nightmare scouting trip, to Rachel and her siblings—the bond that they shared to have survived together through the apocalypse, to have come so far and been through so much, and all together. In some respects, I guess I can actually understand Michael and why he went along with Rachel—why he protected her even though he knew what she was doing was wrong. And if I really dig deep and see past my own bitterness, I can understand why he wants to protect her memory.

  But as always when I think like this, I think about the unnamed woman—the one possibly carrying deader spawn—and all thoughts of sympathy and understanding fly away.

  Chapter 44

  “Earth to Nina.” Max flutters her lashes at me and Emily laughs.

  “She does this a lot,” Emily says with a grin. “Goes off in her own head. Can’t say I blame her, though.”

  I offer them both a smile. Max is still beaming from ear to ear about her false lashes. It’s amusing, really: at the end of the world and the thing that she wanted more than anything else was some false lashes. In fact, it’s funny what most people view as their essential item. You’d think it would be something survivalist—a weapon or water purification tablets or some shit—but more often than not it’s false eyelashes, comic books, or
photographs—utterly useless items, but each help you to feel grounded and more like the person you used to be than the person you are now. And let’s face it, most of us are a shittier version of the person we used to be.

  “Sorry, I’m in my own world today.” I spoon some more of the porridge into my mouth. The ration is noticeably smaller than yesterday’s, and less than the day previous to that.

  “It’s okay.” She smiles again. She’s always smiling; we’re like apples and oranges in this place. “I was just saying that they’re heading back to that mall you found tomorrow. I put in an order for some more lashes. Did you notice if they had any NYX ones? They were my favorite . . .” Max continues to ramble, but again my thoughts have drifted on to something else—or someone else.

  “Is Mikey going?” I ask, interrupting Max’s ramblings.

  “Um, yeah.” Her eyes slip to Emily and then back to me.

  “Shit,” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else. “Is Alek going?” I ask, because I like Alek, I trust him.

  Emily shakes her head. “No, Zee wants him here to help do the maintenance on the fencing, but Michael is going and he’s seriously tough. Mikey will be totally fine!” she says with too much zeal.

  Her words are meant to put my mind at ease, but instead they fill me with dread. I don’t trust Michael, and Mikey thinks something happened between me and him so he isn’t going to be Mr. Friendly or cooperative. That trip is going to be all kinds of fucked up.

  Damn it and damn me for giving a shit. I stand up abruptly, my chair falling down behind me; Max stops talking automatically and Emily eyes me warily.

  “You K?” Max says, as if she’s texting me. I hate it when she uses abbreviations.

  “Yeah, ummm . . .” I look around uncertainly.

  “Nina…I love you,” Emily stands up, her eyes finding mine. “You know this, so I’m saying this for your own good: don’t go and see him. You’re only just starting to be like you again.”

  “But…” I start. “What if something happens out there?”

  “He’ll be fine, you know he will. I have to get back to Becky in the medic building—she’s showing me how to suture today—,but I’ll come by later and we can talk.” She hugs me and picks up her tray, casting nervous glances behind her as she leaves.

  I look down at Max who seems sweetly oblivious. Emily doesn’t realize that half of the reason I haven’t seemed like myself is because of everything that happened with Rachel. Emily is just another person that I’ve had to lie to.

  “I gotta go,” I say to Max and walk off, leaving my tray on the table.

  “KK, I’ll clear this away for you,” she says cheerily, but I’m out the door and not listening anymore. As I exit, Constance is coming in and she offers me a smile, but I charge past her without even an ‘excuse me.’

  I head straight over to the fitness center, where I know Mikey will be. I have no idea what I’m going to say to him—he probably won’t listen to a damn word I say, anyway—but the urge to see him is something I can’t ignore.

  The fitness center is one of the only luxury areas still open on the base—the movie theater and bowling center and the golf course have all been decommissioned since the apocalypse. The fitness center still has a major use and a lot of us have taken refuge there, seeking a place to vent our frustrations without worrying about looking like a total headcase. A lot of the equipment was electrical and we don’t use that, but weights are for free, and there are other things everyone uses.

  The days are getting longer, and I’m glad that spring is now well underway. Winter was long and hard on all of us, and I hope that things will get a little easier in the coming months.

  I push open the metal door to the fitness center, already hearing the grunts from people working out inside. The smell of sweat clings to the walls like old lady smell in a nursing home. It’s rank and stale, but I’ve spent many an hour in here myself, so I get to take credit for some of that smell.

  I head past the changing rooms and into the main gym, where large, intimidating equipment stands proud at every turn. James has spent quite a bit of time in here building up his strength after being shot by Rachel, so I’m surprised to not see him in here today. Instead I find Alek, who offers me a weird grimace smile as he does some sit-ups while strapped to a piece of machinery.

  I wave back and look around for Mikey. My eyes land on Michael; he’s topless as normal, his array of beautiful artwork tattooed across his upper torso. He’s lifting weights, working on his upper body strength, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t impressed by how much he could bench press. I’d also be lying if I said I knew how much it was he was lifting—I just know that there is a lot of metal on each side of the bar.

  I spy Mikey doing push-ups on some gym mats, unfortunately not topless. What? I never said I stopped liking the look of him, just that he was being a douchebag. I mean, the man’s got mad abs and a six-pack to die for. I’m pissed off, not blind. I march over, get halfway there, and realize that I’m being a typical female cliché, so I stop and turn my bratty march into a casual walk.

  He doesn’t look at me when I stand in front of him so I lift an eyebrow, which he still ignores. I wave a hand at him but he continues to keep his eyes on the floor in front of him as he lowers himself down and then pushes himself back up.

  “Mikey.” I say his name both loud and trying to keep it as hushed as possible so as not to draw attention to us. “Please don’t ignore me.”

  He stops his workout and stands up, coming face to face with me. Sweat glistens down the sides of his face, dark patches in the middle of his chest making his T-shirt cling to him in all the right ways. His head is shaved and shiny, his beard the right length for being both equally hot and scratchy.

  “What?” He grabs a towel and rubs it over his face, and I take the moment to compose myself.

  “You’re going on a run tomorrow?” I ask, stumbling over my words, because I have no idea what to say to him now.

  “Yeah,” he says and grabs his water bottle. “So?”

  I bite down on my lower lip, feeling like a total asshole for coming over to see him now. “Be careful.” I shrug, feeling heat rise to my cheeks.

  What the ever-loving fuck is happening to me?

  Mikey stares at me for a long moment, his deep chocolate eyes boring into mine. He reaches over and pulls my lip free from my teeth and my heart skips a beat. “I will be.” He looks at me again and then takes off toward the showers with a frown.

  I don’t follow because honestly I still don’t know what else to say, and I feel completely unnerved by him. I hadn’t expected the indifference from him, but equally I hadn’t expected his touch to ignite something in me.

  I turn to head back home. I pass Michael still bench-pressing, but he stops as I pass him.

  “Nina,” he calls.

  I turn and look at him, all thoughts of Mikey leaving me as I raise an eyebrow. “What?” I look away, uninterested in anything he has to say.

  He comes toward me when I make no move to go to him. “No need to be such a bitch with me,” he grumbles.

  “Fuck off,” I return and spin on my heel.

  His hand grabs the crook of my elbow. “Wait, I wanted to say something.”

  I shrug out of his hold but don’t turn to face him. His face makes me want to punch him in the nose.

  “I’m sorry. I heard you two broke up. I feel responsible for that.”

  “Because you are,” I yell as I storm off, thinking it’s best to leave before I turn around and kick him in the shins.

  *

  As evening falls I head over to Susan’s place. I’ve come to love our evenings reading. My debt has long since been paid off, but I keep doing it because I enjoy it. Even reading about zombies and a post-apocalyptic world isn’t a turn-off anymore. In fact it’s like she said, and when it get too hard or a scene hits too close to home, we call it a night and close the book, as if that can erase the horrors from our minds. We
’ve long since finished the other book; turns out it was the first in a series and we don’t have the rest of them. It’s a shame—I really wanted to know what happened to the characters in it. We’re on to something else now, though. Not zombies this time, but still a post-apocalyptic world. It’s a book about a mother and her daughters traveling across the country and trying to find somewhere safe from the monsters or beasties or whatever they’re called.

  It makes me happy that I’ve never had children and I don’t have to experience what this poor woman goes through. Several times Susan and I have discussed what might have become of the author. Susan thinks she is most likely dead, much like the rest of the world. I don’t, though. Anyone who is smart enough to write the way she does knows how to survive. This woman—this Elizabeth—she’s alive somewhere, I just know it.

  I turn the book over in my hands, seeing the tortured expression of the little girl on the front cover. For some reason this image haunts me more than the one with the zombie on the front. Susan hands me my cocoa and I take a sip as she finds her spot by the fire and I begin tonight’s reading. It’s therapeutic, and after a clunky start I find my tongue sliding over the words as they spill from the pages.

  I lose myself in the story for the next hour, not thinking of Mikey and our breakup, or Michael and Rachel. It’s only when the story progresses to a part about a pregnancy that I begin to stumble as thoughts intrude on the story.

  “You finished for the night, love?”

  I look up from the book. “Sorry, I’m feeling a bit distracted.” I close the book after marking our place. “I’ll read some more tomorrow if that’s okay?”

  Susan smiles and runs her hands through her hair. “That’s fine. I could do with an early night anyway. I was on duty last night—it was a busy one. A group of the things found their way up to the fence.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. Dense woods surround this place and only the central units are used, so mostly you only get one or two stray deaders at the fencing every now and then. A group of them is disquieting.