by A. M. Geever
19
Phineas was frantic when he met them at the airlock.
“It wouldn’t open,” he said, talking so fast it was almost gibberish. “I don’t know what happened.” He looked from person to person, then said, “Where’s Rich?”
“He’s…” Miranda said, choking, unable to get the words out. She turned on Kendall. “This is your fault.”
“But—”
Miranda shoved Kendall in the chest, grief and fury—but most of all, fear—flooding her body. His eyes grew wide, shocked.
“You didn’t listen! You fucking panicked and now Rich is dead. All you had to do was listen, but you ran toward them. We could have gotten back, all of us, but you—”
She broke off, the pain so overwhelming she couldn’t finish. Instead, a strangled sob slipped out. Alec’s hand settled lightly on her shoulder.
“Miranda, back off. It’s not—”
She jerked away, shaking his hand off, and rounded on him. “Don’t tell me to back off.”
Alec raised his hands, as if surrendering. “I’m sorry, lass. We’re all—”
Kendall said, “You were supposed to repel them.”
Oh my God, she thought, the weight of what had happened suddenly sapping her strength. She felt crushed, like the Wicked Witch of the West must have felt when the house from Kansas landed on her. She slumped against the wall, stunned.
“We did,” she whispered, her anger falling a notch. “We did, but… Jesus Christ.”
“You don’t repel them anymore?” Phineas barked, his eyes as wide as wagon wheels.
Alec nodded. “They attacked Rich. He went to help Kendall, thinking they’d react like before, and then… They don’t seem interested in Miranda, but they aren’t staying away from her.”
“But… I thought once you repelled them, you repelled them,” Phineas said.
Miranda shook her head. “River mentioned it might not last. That we just didn’t know.” Her voice became hard when she looked at Kendall. “But it shouldn’t have mattered. If you hadn’t run away, we’d all have made it back, whether we repelled them or not, but we had to crash through the forest after you, and pull in every zombie in earshot.”
Kendall looked at her like he was a puppy she’d just kicked. “I didn’t want any of this… I like Rich…”
His voice faded away. He looked forlorn. Lost. Her fingers twitched, balling into fists before unfurling and doing it again. She felt enervated, her body so depleted that sliding down the wall to sit on the floor felt impossible. Alec took her hand, dipping his chin to catch her eye. His own were exhausted but brimmed with concern.
She wanted to scream… To lash out and rage against the unfairness, against the way the world just seemed to take and take and never stop. Rich was a good man. Thoughtful, and charming in his self-deprecating way. Always mindful of the manners he gave his mother credit for. Incredibly smart but not flashy about it. The guy she wanted next to her when the chips were down because he was—
He used to be, she thought, he used to be those things.
Through the stunned haze, something tugged at her. Something Phineas had said. “Did you say the doors wouldn’t open?” she said to him.
Phineas nodded, the movements of his head jerky and off-time. “I don’t know what happened. I tried them again after you left, just the airlock like Kendall suggested, and they worked just fine. But after an hour, it said they were invalid.”
“Mine didn’t work either,” Alec said.
Neither had hers. She shook her head. It didn’t make sense. Kendall had given them the codes. Why hadn’t they worked? She rubbed at her eyes. They felt filled with sand. Her last glimpse of Rich’s face had been the terrified, cerulean blue of his eyes. She instinctively knew she’d see it her nightmares.
“Oh my God,” she said, the pieces falling into place like complicated clockwork. She stared at Kendall in horror. “You gave us codes that didn’t work.”
Silence filled the corridor. It pushed against her with an oppressive ruthlessness. Alec’s gaze was turned inward, while he thought. Phineas’ face had gone slack. Kendall’s eyes shifted from person to person under the owl blink, like a pin ball dragged around by a magnet.
Phineas’ stunned voice broke the silence. “You were going to leave me here with no way to get out?”
Kendall shook his head. Phineas catapulted into Kendall, grabbing him by the shoulders. The loud smack of Kendall’s body against the wall echoed in the confined space of the corridor.
“You were going to trap me here?” Phineas shouted, spittle flying from his teeth. Even though he was shorter than Kendall by half a foot, he seemed to tower over him. “Leave the others with no way to get inside?”
“No,” Kendall said, gasping, shaking his head. “No… They worked! Just not—”
“Just not what?” Phineas shouted, rattling Kendall’s lanky frame.
Alec wrenched Phineas away, barely able to pry the two men apart. Delilah barked and growled, running between the scrabbling men and Miranda. Once freed, Kendall retreated, staggering back.
Miranda never moved. Her feet felt cemented in place.
“Just not what?” she asked.
Kendall’s eyes blinked so rapidly that they looked like the flicker of windows of one train speeding by another, but she could see the trapped look in their brown depths. When he didn’t answer, Alec said, “We almost died, Kendall, because none of our codes worked.”
Kendall closed his eyes, visibly steeling himself, maybe from an expected attack, or maybe from the truth. “I— They did work, just…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Not as long as I told you.”
“What?” Alec said.
“They…they worked for an hour,” Kendall said, his voice so low Miranda could barely hear him.
Shock hit her like a blow, sent her stumbling back against the wall. “Why would you do that?”
But she already knew the answer. It was this place, and what he had. It was his fear that he’d lose it. It was the scarcity mentality that had probably predated his lonely exile into this tomb, when he’d had more money than God. What she didn’t understand was why. Why the ruse, the pretense of trust? Kendall’s chin trembled. His face screwed up, tears pooling in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare cry. Don’t expect us to pity you,” she spat. “You cared more about keeping this place than our lives… You’d rather have died on your goddamned doorstep than risk losing this shit! Why do it at all?”
He stood there, frozen, his mouth open. When a tear slipped through his eyelashes, bile rose in her throat.
“You fucker… Stay the fuck away from me,” Phineas said, shoving Kendall hard against the wall before stalking away.
Alec took Miranda’s hand. “C’mon. Let’s wash up.”
She followed him as if in a trance. It was only when he winced while opening the outer door to their dome that she remembered he was injured.
“You’re hurt,” she said. Like a gusting wind, concern dispersed the fog of shocked anger. “Where? Are you okay?”
“It’s my back,” Alec said. “A slipped disc from years ago. I’ll be fine.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“I know,” Alec said. He looked tired, the pain in his eyes draining them of their brilliance. “But we can’t get through the zombies outside right now.”
“I’ll get you some ice, and see if there are any painkillers,” she said.
Alec caught her arm, a warning in his eyes. “Steer clear of Kendall. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t.” When he gave her a hard look, she said, “I promise.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Alec held her gaze, looking at her across the bed while they hastily crammed their belongings into their packs. Both his question and concern for her were in his eyes. She nodded. The small motion set off a chain reaction of agony, starting with the cleaver that split open the top of her head, followed by ice picks stabbing
behind her eyes.
He said, “If you stay sober, we can wait until tomorrow when you’re not hung over.”
It didn’t matter how hungover she was, they needed to get out of here, but Alec might be another story. “Are you okay? Will you be able to handle your pack with your back?”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “It’s sore, but I can manage. I got more painkillers from the med bay.”
She sighed, unsure if she believed him. The care in Alec’s eyes hurt almost as much as her head. The rake—with the sly smile and the rogue’s twinkle in his eye—had been MIA since they got back yesterday.
Her surroundings felt fuzzy at the edges. She’d barely slept last night, kept up by dreams of babies that were really zombies, blue eyes filled with terror, and Mario’s gentle voice insisting she love something, or kill something, or accept the blame—take your pick. She’d walked rings in the living area, trying to calm down, and began to feel guilty about what she’d said to Kendall. She’d been upset, but blaming him for Rich’s death? That had been low, no matter what he’d done. What he’d done wasn’t the point, horrible as his charade was. Blaming him was just like Mario accusing her of leaving the baby behind, and goddamn him for it. Half the bottle of Scotch turned down the psychic noise enough that she’d been able to crawl back into bed beside Alec, the warmth of his body reassuring enough that she’d drifted asleep.
The enormity of Rich’s death was beginning to hit her. She’d lost a good friend and been helpless to do anything other than watch—and then flee. She had to tell Mathilde that her husband was dead, that their children were fatherless. Zombies didn’t notice her—for now—but she no longer repelled them. She’d only gained the ability what…six months ago? She’d come to rely on it more than she realized. Never mind that she’d never asked for it, never wanted it, never known what its price would be.
And Kendall…
She gave her head a sharp shake, pain slicing through her skull. She couldn’t even think about Kendall right now. She cursed herself for drinking so much last night, because dying would be preferable to this hangover, but staying in the bunker for another night felt too dangerous.
“We need to get out of here,” she said.
He regarded her with a level, appraising gaze for what felt like years. “What about LO and the food?”
She’d expected this, because she’d racked her brain about it last night. “He told us we could get back in here on our own, but that was a lie.”
“He lied about how long our codes would work,” Alec countered.
“Did he?”
Alec narrowed his eyes. “Phineas unlocked the doors after we left, so he’d be familiar with how it worked. He was able to open them, so our codes must have worked, too, for a time.”
“Really? We never tested them.” Her head pounded when she spoke, and when she didn’t. She really needed to get something for it. “Phineas checked his right after we closed the blast door, just like Kendall told him to. He didn’t try again until we got back, when they didn’t work. We don’t know how long Phineas was able to open them, or if our codes ever worked. We know nothing but what Kendall told us.”
Alec’s brow furrowed. His lips wrinkled into a frown. “But it makes no sense! We went out before with only him able to open the doors. Why put on this elaborate show?”
Miranda shrugged. “I don’t know. But if he was willing to leave us out there to die if he did, and trap Phineas inside, he’ll never share his food willingly. We have to go home and come back with enough people to take it.”
Alec’s troubled face smoothed into tired lines of resignation. “Maybe they’ve found some while we’ve been here. Maybe we won’t need Kendall’s.”
“Maybe. But I doubt it.”
“We should still stay another night,” Alec said. “You don’t have to see him. You don’t have to leave our dome. You’re in no fit state to be going outside, lass. You’ve a massive head on you.”
She was pretty sure he meant she was hungover, not that her body was out of proportion. “We’re still depending on Kendall to let us out. We need to leave, Alec. The sooner, the better, while he’s still feeling guilty.”
“Christ…I didn’t think he might not let us out.”
“You’re an optimist. I’m not.”
“There are still a lot of zombies around,” Alec said. His eyes went out of focus while he thought for a moment. “You’re thinking to use the emergency exit tunnel. The one off the pool?”
“If the diagrams he showed us of this place are real, it should put us half a mile down the mountain.”
“I’ll find the emergency exit camera… There’s got be one with all the others. If it looks all right outside that door, we’ll go.”
“Fine by me.”
Thirty minutes later, Delilah raced ahead of them, disappearing into the door of the swimming pool dome. The bright squiggles of light reflected from the motion of the water set off a new cascade of pain. She stopped for a moment, clamping down on her gag reflex when the smell of chlorine hit her. Delilah woofed, the sound echoing.
“Fuck me,” she muttered under her breath, then followed Alec around the pool to the far end of the dome where Phineas waited by the open door. The tunnel on the other side of it was gray concrete, and as utilitarian as the rest of the bunker was opulent. Kendall hovered just inside its open door, his face almost panicked.
Phineas’ brow wrinkled when he saw her. “You sure you’re up for this, Miranda?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
She did her best to ignore everything while Alec and Phineas entered the tunnel. She steeled herself before stepping through the hatch, unable to slip by Kendall as quickly as she’d have liked on account of her pack.
“Miranda. Please,” Kendall said when she didn’t stop, sounding desperate.
She saw the guys, now ten paces ahead of her, stop and turn back around.
“In private?” Kendall added, his voice hopeful, and raised just enough that Alec and Phineas could hear him.
Alec’s face was impassive. Phineas was another matter. The anger on his face looked unnatural, like an ill-fitting garment. She waved them on. Kendall’s brown eyes were filled with anxiety. He looked pale, and like he’d barely slept, bags that almost looked like bruises under his eyes. His restless energy couldn’t be contained as he rocked from foot to foot. He fidgeted, gnawing on the fingernail of his pinky finger, before rubbing the back of his neck, then jamming his hands in his pockets. The owl blink was doing double-time.
“Please…don’t leave like this.”
Keeping her voice even, she said, “I have to tell Rich’s wife he’s dead.”
Kendall blanched. “I know— I didn’t mean…” He took an audible breath. “I care about—”
“Please stop talking,” she said, not unkindly, but cutting him off.
She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t lose her temper. The shame she’d felt last night about some of the things she’d said to Kendall prickled her conscience. It wasn’t his fault that he’d panicked. He was new to it all: going outside, dealing with zombies, keeping the fear in check. It was impossible to predict how people would react when confronted with that reality for the first time. She’d seen people jumpier than Kendall turn out to be rock solid, and big, tough guys turn into gibbering idiots. It had been wrong of her to blame him for Rich’s death. She knew that, even if she hadn’t said it.
But he’d lied about the codes. The whole thing was so stupid, but even if she could sympathize with why Kendall had done it—and she couldn’t—it wouldn’t change anything. If Kendall had died yesterday instead of Rich, or in addition to Rich, she and Alec would probably be dead. Phineas would be trapped here. Miranda had lied to Kendall by omission. She’d flat-out lied, too. But her lies had never put him in danger.
“Don’t tell me you care,” she said. Her voice was soft, and she couldn’t keep her anger out of it. “Not when you let us go out there thinking— If you�
�d died, too, we’d have run back here thinking we could get inside, and we’d be dead.” Her head ached. Figuring out what she was trying to say made it worse. “I don’t understand what giving us fake codes was about. And I don’t want to, so save it.”
He stared at her, frozen. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out.
When she realized he wasn’t going to say anything, she said, “I’m sorry for saying it was your fault Rich died.” She swallowed, her mouth and throat once again dry. “It wasn’t your fault, and I shouldn’t have said that. Rich knew the risks when it comes to zombies and people who’ve never dealt with them. We all did.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, his eyes filling with tears. “I care about you.”
Anger flooded her body, hard and sudden and hot. She wanted to punch him. She wanted to slap those needy tears out of his eyes, slap him so hard that if he ever caught up with himself, it would be next year. She might as well be looking at Mario, because that’s what it felt like—the needing, the wanting, the sucking her dry. Kendall’s neediness slithered into the space between them, coiled her in its sticky tentacles, squeezed her in its greedy grip.
“Don’t tell me you care, Kendall,” she hissed. “What you care about is this place, and your stuff. You know what’s more important than weapons or hiding places or anything when you’re out there? People you trust. Maybe I haven’t been honest with you all the time, but it was never about anything that would get you killed.”
Kendall shrank into himself. He swiped at his face, dashing the tears away. “You’re wrong,” he whispered, almost gasped. “I do care.”
A sneer curled Miranda’s lip. “You didn’t care if we died out there. Just like you didn’t care about the people you watched die when all this started, flying your goddamned drones around to watch the biggest disaster movie ever. You might want to fuck me, but don’t care about me, and you don’t care if everyone I care about starves.”
A mirthless laugh chuffed in her throat, jagged and sharp like broken glass. She turned on her heel and stalked away.
