“Everything seems fine,” Nolan’s voice carried down to us from the one large second-floor window. He’d opened it a bit to speak to me and Leon, the only two people left outside. I lifted my face one more time to feel the heat on my cheeks and then I started for the door, left ajar by the last person to enter. I turned around as I crossed the threshold, finding Leon still standing still, his back against the van.
“Are you coming?” I tried to smile at him, but the expression fell flat. “It’s probably safer. I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything out here but…” I let my words trail off.
Leon was looking at me now, but he wasn’t seeing me.
“Leon?”
He blinked his eyes rapidly, his lips barely moving as he finally spoke. “Yeah, I’m coming. Almost rather sleep in the van though.” He looked up at the now closed window above us, to where Nolan was standing moments before. I felt a bit bad for him. The signs were there—he’d forged some sort of attachment to Rose. But that was his mistake and not hers.
We had to focus on the dark shit that was happening.
It was what I wanted to say to Leon right then, to make him move on and stop focusing on whatever feelings were stewing in his head. But I didn’t. Because I was right there with him. Clinging to Barrett when he might, beneath all the moments of soft and hard and attitude, just see me as something to screw in a world gone mad. A place to get his rocks off.
And I was internally acting like the heroine of a great love story. Like here, at the end, I was finding the person I was actually meant to be with and the ex-fiancé that plagued my memories was finally a nonentity to me.
Yeah. I was a hypocrite to the highest degree.
“Come on, we need to stick together,” I said.
Leon let out a bitter laugh. “Made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”
I shrugged. “If that’s the worst thing to happen to you this week, then I’d call that a win.” I pushed through the door, leaving it fully open for Leon to come through.
Directly in front of me when I entered was a set of stairs, and to the left of that a short hallway that led to a room with sliding doors framing a small backyard. Another entrance, but the yard space was fully fenced, at least. There was a second door, narrow and white. I assumed it led into the garage and I wondered if someone had thought to check in there. I was sure they had.
Heart thumping rapidly, I felt the need to check for myself. Walking over, hearing the click of the front door closing behind me as Leon entered, I turned the lock and gripped the knob. I swallowed hard, my throat catching, as I twisted and pulled. The door gave way from the frame easily, not the slightest of squeaks.
“What are you doing?” Leon was standing behind me. I thought he’d gone upstairs—in fact, I was sure I’d heard him start up the stairs. Maybe I hadn’t. My chest was a barrier, my heart a battering ram beating against it. And all my synapses were on fire, sensitive to every small movement. Deep down I knew it wasn’t right, but I also didn’t know how to explain it either.
It was like my fingertips were on fire. My ears were reflecting sound. My nose was stronger than any dog’s, and good God, I was hungry.
“I’m just checking out the garage,” I replied as calmly as possible.
“I’m sure Nolan and the others already did.” When he said Nolan, his dislike was thinly veiled.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I continued opening the door despite my words. The inside of the garage was strangely anticlimactic. I walked in, my fingers flexing at my sides like they were trying to rid my body of the nervous energy my heart created.
“See? Nothing.” Leon’s voice was flat this time. He seemed to have two emotions at the moment: apathy and jealousy.
Not responding to him, I stood in the garage with its sparse contents. Eventually he left, that time mounting the stairs and not coming back.
I’m not sure why, but standing in that emptiness, I started quietly crying. It was a different sort of grief than I’d experienced since my plane’s fateful landing in LA. A hand gripped my shoulder and I jumped in surprise. At first I thought it might be Barrett, but when I focused on the hand, I realized it was more slender than that. Daintier.
“Doing okay?” Rose’s accent, with its distinctive roundness, made me smile.
I turned, finding her face more concerned than I’d wanted it to be.
“Could really do with a cup of tea round about now, right?” She smiled.
I forced a smile back. “Yeah, me too.”
“Would it be too cliché if I said I’d kill for a crumpet too?”
I snorted out a laugh and swiped at my eyes and she smiled.
“So?” she probed. “You doing okay?”
“I feel fine.”
She searched my face.
“Really, Rose. I’m not lying to you. I feel,” —I spread my hands out and gave a small shrug— “fine.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I did feel fine. More than fine, really, though I wasn’t about to tell her that. Not yet, at least.
“Your eyes haven’t gotten any less pink.” Her own eyes narrowed a bit as she leaned in a little closer. “But at least your fever seems to have broken.”
“Well, I don’t have a compact mirror on hand, so I can’t judge that.” I smiled as I spoke, hoping to lighten the mood a little. It didn’t work. “Shame, as I’m sure I could use a nose powdering or some lip gloss. Can’t be too good looking at the end of the world.”
Now, Rose’s mouth did lift up on one side, a half-hearted attempt to give me what I wanted: levity in a dark situation. “We need to talk.”
“Go on.”
“I just want you to know…I wouldn’t want to hurt you. I want you to know that, right off the bat. It’s not something I’d do lightly—but I would do it.” Her expression was deadly serious now, her eyes soft but determined.
And god, I was so grateful for her absolute honesty in that moment. She wasn’t covering or pretending any of this wasn’t happening, or that it wasn’t a very real possibility that I could actually turn into one of those monsters outside, and I respected her so much for that.
“I know that. I mean…we don’t really know each other, I guess. But I know that. And I’m grateful, because I don’t want to be one of those things, and I don’t want to hurt anyone, Rose.” I moved forward fast, throwing my arms around her and pulling her in close for a hug. I squeezed her tightly.
She hesitated at first, but then she hugged me back. My tears had stopped, but I could feel she’d taken up the call for grief, for sadness. A few drops of wetness hit my shoulder, penetrating the material of the hoodie I wore. We both needed showers and a good night’s rest, but a decent cry will go a long way in re-centering a person’s sense of living.
Rose pulled away first, swiping her eyes quickly and resettling her tougher persona. “Come on. There’s lots of food upstairs. I’m sure you’re as hungry as me. No brains, I’m afraid.” Now a full grin sprouted on her face.
“I’ll have to make do, I guess. Raw hamburger over spaghetti noodles? Maybe a little A1 steak sauce for color? Brains aren’t really red. More of a…flesh color. Like blended hotdogs with a little mayo.” I walked past her and into the hallway of the house.
She followed, her face looking disgusted. “That’s almost sicker than just straight up going for brains.”
I giggled at how revolted she sounded. “I’m not stingy. I’ll share if you want.”
“Okay, babe, enough of that.” Rose held her hands up in defeat before following me out of the garage and shutting the door. “We can’t kid about stuff like this. Especially when people might overhear.” But she was grinning still.
“Overhear what?” Barrett was sitting halfway up the stairs when Rose and I rounded the corner to head to the upper floor, and Rose stumbled into my back. I didn’t know if Rose felt as startled as I did, but I glared up at him, for the first time finding him not so attractive.
There was something suspicious in the way he was staring
at me, his hooded gaze watching me intently, and I swallowed, feeling nervous.
“Lurking around corners is shitty,” I spat out, panicky over how long he’d been sitting there listening.
“Well,” he drawled, standing up and stretching out his back, “I’ve always been a bit too skilled at lurking, prowling, loitering, skulking. Master of robbery and skullduggery. Eavesdropper extraordinaire. I’m a jack of all trades.” His mouth quirked into a handsome, slanted smile.
“You’re a dickhead,” Rose barked, pushing past me and then past him, making sure her body gave him a bit of a jolt as she went by.
“Looks like I pissed off Miss UK,” he chuckled. His eyes were doing that sparkly thing. And that only stoked my irritation.
“Not just her.” It was my turn to push past him, only he didn’t budge a bit, even though I attempted to use my body just as forcibly as Rose had. No—in fact, he seemed to make a point of pushing back, so that our bodies met firmly for several moments too damn long. I was mad. I wanted to stay mad. And I absolutely did not want to think about the muscles obvious under his clothing. Nor what he might have heard Rose and I talking about.
I regained my composure on the last few steps up.
The second floor of the house was mainly comprised of a moderately sized but nicely designed kitchen. Granite someone obviously cared for, glossy and clean, was now partially obscured by food products.
“Go on, eat up.” Karla was making a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while most everyone else munched on various flavors of chips. “Kandace always keeps enough food to feed a small army. Good thing too. Not that we’re much of an army, but there’s enough for us to eat hearty and still be plenty for when my sister and her family come back.”
Nolan and Rose exchanged a glance. I felt they were silently saying what I was thinking: there was no way to know if Karla’s sister was ever coming back.
I walked forward, gripping the edge of the countertop. I didn’t stand there long before someone slid a bowl filled with chips toward me. I took it gratefully, though I absolutely hated cheddar-flavored. Taking the food, I went into the living room and walked toward the singular large window. I peered out the glass as I chewed, looking up and down the street, with its small potholes. There was a bus gazebo one road over; its orange-brown tiled roof, the sort of thing you see on haciendas and Spanish-inspired buildings, was an obvious thing between two rows of townhome units.
Something made me keep staring at that little bench with its LA-style rain sanctuary. I kept staring, like my gut was telling me it was noticing something I wasn’t.
A few moments later, something appeared from behind the bench. It was pulling itself up, its movements jerky and shaky, like its legs didn’t want to support it.
It was one of the things.
The zombies.
Only a road over.
I’d let myself think this little part of LA, where Karla’s sister lived, was within some sort of bubble. Like we’d passed through a field of protection and could sleep soundly without a single worry.
But that’s not something that happens when hell has broken loose everywhere. There’s no snow globe of perfection, with a lovely building in the middle of falling snow. An angelic haven.
Even a snow globe is made of glass, of course.
Even that little slice of perfect can be shattered with a single blow.
“Thanks, Karla.”
I turned at the sound of Leon’s voice. He was taking a sandwich from Karla’s outstretched hands.
“Course. I’m a darn fine PB&J maker. My babies can’t get enough of Auntie K’s ‘sammiches.’” Karla pointed a jam-covered knife at a picture hanging near the six-person dining table. Two kiddos, with deep skin and wide, bright smiles, were sitting and holding hands. The boy was smaller, dressed in blue and white plaid with a crisp bowtie around his collar. The girl, only a little older it seemed, was in a baby blue skirt and lace top. The hairband in her hair held back a riot of long, wild ringlets.
“They’re beauts,” Rose said, smiling at the faces on the wall and then back at Karla. “I hope we get to meet them.” She was holding a sandwich in her hand, like she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Karla sobered at that. “Me too. If they’ve left here…they might have gone to our uncle’s place upstate. It’s real secluded. I want them to come back here though, so I can hold them and see that they’re really okay, but I also want them as far away from this shit as possible.” She set down the knife, picked up a sandwich triangle, and took a bite. I had a feeling she was the eat-your-feelings type. And I couldn’t blame her a damn bit. I wanted to be able to eat and take comfort in food. It would be an escape. But dancing—growing up with strict diets and weigh-ins and rampant bulimia in each company I joined—made eating a sparse necessity. It was hard for me to put on any weight, even though my doctor had told me several times that a few more pounds would do me good.
“You going to eat that or stare at it?” Karla asked, looking at Rose.
“Umm, can I ask a really stupid question?” Rose looked around her, her cheeks flushing redder when she noted that almost everyone was staring.
“Sure, what is it?” Karla replied seriously.
“Is this actual jelly?” Rose tried her hardest not to grimace. “Because that sounds pretty grim if so.”
Nolan smirked and shook his head, his normally hard exterior cracking. “It’s like a jam,” he said, and Rose turned to look at him, her big eyes widening and making her look like Bambi, all sweet and innocent. “Only not as thick.”
She looked relieved and smiled. “Ohhhh, I thought it was like jelly and ice cream jelly and”—she shuddered—“that just sounded weird.”
“I think what you’re thinking of is Jell-O,” Leon said with a soft smile, his scowl missing for the moment.
“Right,” Rose said, looking embarrassed. She took a bite out of the sandwich. “That’s actually pretty good,” she said through a mouthful.
“Hey, think the phone works?” Leon was studying a landline mounted to the right of the door that led to the small deck attached to the back of the house.
“Maybe.” Nolan shrugged. “You could always pick it up and find out.”
Leon scowled. “Thanks, Captain Obvious. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” He picked up the phone as he said it, and the sound of Barrett’s rumbling laughter echoed from across the room as he watched the exchange.
Rose’s eyes settled on Leon. “So, is there a dial tone? I’d kill to make a call.” She tried to keep her expression neutral, but there was thick hope across her face. She could call her mom, her dad. She could call overseas if the phone worked, and make sure her loved ones were okay, make sure they knew she was alive too. God, I wanted that for her. The disappointment on her face from the airport was still raw in my mind, and I crossed my fingers that this phone would work.
“Yep. Dial tone.” Leon smiled. “First dibs.” He stuffed his last bite of sandwich into his mouth and punched numbers with large, eager fingers. So eager, in fact, that he had to attempt the dial three times before he got it right. Rose stared daggers at the side of his face the entire time, and I had a feeling he’d definitely just killed off any chance with her he might have had.
“Meg. Christ, good to hear your voice. How’s Danny boy. He good? He miss me?”
He fell quiet for a while, listening to the other speaker.
“Shit, there too?” He scratched his head, tilting it forward to stare at the floor. “I hoped it was just here. Hoped it was some sort of California crap going on.”
The murmur of the second voice floated to me, unintelligible.
“Why the hell are you there? You need to be home. Be with your boyfriend. Lock the damn doors.”
That whispering sound again.
“Meg, they’re not as important as your life. You need—”
He was apparently interrupted by the person he was speaking to.
“I understand. Damn, of all p
eople, you know I understand. How many you got there?”
He went quiet once more.
“Take them home then, Meg. Take what you need, but get the hell home. If something happens to Danny, it’s okay. I’ll understand. Just cut him loose and let him fend for himself. He’s a big boy, he can handle it.” Leon paused for one more listen. “Yeah, you too. You stay safe. I’ll do my best to get home asap. You’re right. He’s family.”
When Leon hung the phone back up, he slammed his hands into his pockets and sighed. Leaning even more forward, he rested his forehead against the wall, maybe using it to steady himself.
“Well, this shit’s as far east as Roswell.” Leon spoke while still against the wall, but he righted himself before talking again. “It’s everywhere, man. I think it’s goddamn everywhere.”
“Who were you talking to?” I asked, walking toward the kitchen with the now empty bowl in my hand.
“A friend. Meg. She runs a boarding place.” Leon went to the table and sat in one of the chairs. “She’s been staying with the animals—didn’t want to leave them. She’s going to head home now though. Just take them with her. Only four of them there right now.”
“And who the hell’s Danny boy?” Nolan this time, still with the barest hint of attitude.
“My Great Dane,” Leon said like it was obvious. He leaned back in the chair. “Only family I got in this world.”
I scowled at him, confused and a little angry that he’d bumped our phone calls so he could check on his dog. I got he loved it, but everyone here had family we needed to find out about. Actual people! I glanced over to Rose, seeing her furious expression. She looked like she was about ready to punch him in the face.
Red Eye | Season 1 | Episode 4 Page 4
