Among Monsters: A Red Hill Novella (9 page)

“Don’t tell Halle. Don’t tell any of them. Let’s pretend that we didn’t see it.”

I nodded, wiping my eyes.

“Any luck?” Tavia asked when we got back into the vehicle.

Halle and Tobin were coloring.

Dad shook his head.

Tavia’s eyebrows pulled together. “Jenna? You all right, honey?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Andrew, what’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing.”

Halle turned around in her seat, her elbows perched on the console. “What did you see?”

Dad turned, too. “Don’t answer, Jenna.” He looked to Tavia. “You don’t want to know. Some things you can’t unsee.”

Tavia covered her mouth as Dad backed out of the driveway, and then she reached up to grab my hand, squeezing tightly. We both knew that was just one of the first of many awful things I would see, that we would all see. Even when we wanted to look away, we would have to stare ugly things in the face just to stay alive.

Halle turned around, and I closed my eyes. It was only a matter of time before she would have that last bit of innocence taken from her, too. I couldn’t cover her eyes forever.

Dad pulled out onto the road, turning west.

West on Highway 11.

On our way to heaven…

Right after we get through hell.

The gas station was in the next town, but no one was manning the store inside. Dad used his credit card, whispering prayers I couldn’t quite make out. Then, he punched the air, the vein in his forehead bulging. He crossed his arms on the back corner of the Tahoe and rested his head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I think something has to be tripped in there. I hope,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the store.

It was smaller than small. Dad reached inside, his feet coming off the ground, as he leaned over his seat toward the passenger side and grabbed his rifle.

“What are you doing?”

He cocked the gun. “I’m going to see if I can get the juice flowing. Can you try to run the card out here? Just do this.” He showed me how to insert the card into the slit and then pull it out. “Choose the grade by pressing the eighty-seven button,” he instructed, pressing it. “Then, take the pump off the holder and pull up the lever. The nozzle fits into the gas tank, like this, and squeeze the trigger,” he said as I watched him act it all out. “You got it?”

“I can do it.”

Tavia leaned out of her open window. “You didn’t have to go through all that. I can do it.”

“She needs to learn. She needs to learn everything,” Dad said, keeping his eyes on the store. He held the rifle in front of him with both hands and took his first step.

“Be careful,” I said. “They can sneak up on you.”

Dad didn’t turn around. When he reached the double doors, he banged on the glass with the stock of his gun. After nothing happened, he went inside.

I dipped the card into the slot, chose the grade, and then lifted the nozzle before placing it into the mouth of the SUV’s tank. The gas pump beeped again, but again, nothing happened, and the digital display returned to scrolling words.

Dad popped his head out of the door. “Try it one more time. I think I figured it out.”

I ran the card, but this time it was denied. “What? No,” I said, trying it again. The word
Denied
came up again.

Dad pushed through the doors and held up his hands, frustrated and confused.

“It says the card is denied!” I yelled.

He jogged over to me.

“She’s right,” Tavia said. “I was watching.”

“Damn it. Damn it!” Dad yelled to the sky. He palms against the driver’s side door, his fingertips turning white, his jaw muscles working beneath the skin. “We have to go back to Anderson.”

“What? No. We’ll go as far as we can, and then we’ll walk the rest of the way,” I said.

Dad glared at me. “With a toddler and a seven-year-old? Jenna, that’s not realistic.”

“We have a tent. We have everything we need. We’ll keep watch. We can find an empty house. We can make it.”

“It’s too dangerous. Those things are everywhere! We’re going back.”

“Mom isn’t in Anderson.”

“Jenna, something bad could happen. Are you willing to risk your sister’s life? Your mom wouldn’t want that.”

“She didn’t stay in Anderson because she knew we couldn’t survive there. We’ve talked about it. We—”

“I said no,” Dad said, his tone final.

“You weren’t there! You don’t get to make this decision! This is something Halle and I promised to Mom!”

“If she were that worried about riding this out with you, she wouldn’t have left. She was right there, Jenna, and she left!”

“Andrew!” Tavia scolded.

Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.

Dad’s shoulders fell. “Damn it. Jenna, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m just frustrated.”

“She didn’t leave us. She is meeting us at Red Hill. That’s the plan. It’s always been the plan,” I said, sniffing.

“You’re right,” Dad said, his cheeks flushed.

“She didn’t leave us,” I said again, mostly to myself. “I know her. I know exactly what she is thinking. I would have done the same thing! She wasn’t sure if we would come back to your house. She knew where we would go, though, because we promised each other, and we keep our promises.”

Dad bobbed his head. “Load up. Let’s go.”

I climbed into the back, next to Tobin, crossing my arms, and Dad sat in the driver’s seat. He turned the ignition. The engine started, then sputtered, and died.

“No…c’mon…” He turned it again.

The engine made a whirring sound, but it didn’t catch this time. Dad slapped the steering wheel with both hands.

“Andrew,” Tavia said, her voice low and soothing, “we can walk. We can make it. It’ll just take us longer than originally planned.”

Dad nodded and ruffled Halle’s matted hair. “Okay, Pop Can, get your backpack. Take as much as you can carry.”

Halle obeyed, pulling her backpack over her shoulders.

WE KEPT TO THE ROAD.

Dad half-hoped a car would pass us and pull over, but he also worried that someone would try to take our stuff. I didn’t tell him that it was unlikely since it was only day two, and most people were either worried about getting home to their loved ones or concentrating on fortifying where they were.

“You don’t know that, Jenna. Everything you know is based on television shows,” Dad scolded.

“Which are based on common sense and historical facts,” I said.

“There has never been a zombie outbreak before.”

“But there’ve been disasters before. The behavior is the same.”

Dad sighed and shook his head. Then, he stopped and turned around. “Want me to carry him?”

Tobin had fallen asleep half an hour before, and Tavia had fallen further behind the longer we walked. She shook her head, too tired to talk.

Dad double-backed toward her, his arms out in front of him. “Give him to me. You’re no use if you’re exhausted. We still have fourteen miles to make before dark.”

Tavia’s chest heaved, handing her son over. “I’m really regretting my excuses not to walk with my friend Teresa.”

Dad chuckled, but his smile vanished when Halle pointed.

“Daddy!” she said, alarmed.

One of those things, a man, was stumbling toward us.

“It’s alone,” Dad said. “Probably from the next town. We’ll make a wide run around him and then run for a while to stay ahead of him.”

“I can’t run,” Tavia said, breathless.

The thing was coming closer.

Dad looked around. “We could find a place to hide, but he’ll probably just follow. Either way, we’ll have to pick up the pace.”

“If we kill it, we don’t have to,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

“I’ll run around with Halle. You distract it. When he turns around, kick his knees out from under him, and then hit him in the head with the butt of your rifle.”

Dad’s eyebrows shot up.

I shrugged. “Or we can run.”

“What kind of stuff was your mom letting you watch?” he asked.

“That was from a video game. Are we going to run or not?” I asked.

Dad and Tavia looked at each other.

“I’m sorry, Andrew. I just can’t.”

Dad breathed out as he handed Tobin to Tavia. Dad rubbed the back of his neck and then pulled the strap of his rifle over his head. “Yesterday, I never would have believed that I’d be bashing someone’s head in.”

“I didn’t think I’d be bait either. We all have jobs to do.”

He glared at me. “Don’t watch—either of you. I don’t want you to see me doing this.”

“Just make sure you kick out his knees,” I said. “It’ll be a lot easier.”

I knelt down, and Halle climbed onto my back. I jerked up, adjusting her position.

“In theory,” Dad said. “Go on. Give yourself plenty of room.”

We walked another twenty seconds. Then, Tavia stopped, Dad readied himself, and I ran to the right in a wide half circle. The man moaned, reaching for us.

“Hey!” I said. “This way!”

He turned to follow, his bloody Oklahoma Sooners shirt ripped at the collar. Raw meat and bone were visible, but the blood wasn’t fresh. Something had chewed on him but not for long.

I heard Dad grunt, and I turned, but I didn’t come to a full stop. The infected fell just like I’d said it would, but when Dad hit its head with the stock of his rifle, it kept reaching for him.

“Hit it again!” I yelled.

Dad swung again, and a loud crack echoed in every direction. It was finally still. Dad nudged it with his boot and then stomped over to Halle and me.

“I thought I told you not to watch!” he growled.

I looked back and up at Halle whose hand was over her glasses. “She didn’t.”

“You! I told you, too!”

“I can’t keep my eyes closed, Dad! I have to see what’s coming!”

He thought about that for a moment, still breathing hard. Different emotions scrolled across his face, and then he bobbed his head once before wiping the remnants of the infected’s brain matter off his gun and onto the grass.

“Good job,” Tavia said when she caught up to us.

Dad took Tobin again, and we continued on, almost as if nothing had happened.

I kept Halle on my back, knowing we still had a long way to go. She silently thanked me by touching her cheek to the crown of my head and giving me the slightest squeeze. I grinned. For us, getting along was a rarity. When I wasn’t antagonizing her, she would be bossing me around. We had become so accustomed to fighting that we’d often yell at each other for no reason at all.

But now, the world had shifted, and so had the things I cared about. The most important thing to me was Halle, and even after two miles with her small yet surprisingly heavy frame, the goal of getting her to Mom kept my feet moving forward.

We talked while we walked. We ate while we walked. We drank and laughed. All the while, we moved toward the next town, only pausing for bathroom breaks.

“I’m hungry,” Halle said just as we reached the crest of a hill.

The sun was hot, and none of us were used to hiking such a distance.

“It’s snack time, isn’t it?” she asked.

“We’ve got to conserve food, Halle. We don’t know how long we’ll be out here.”

“What does that mean?” Halle asked.

I held out my hand to her. “It means, we can’t have snacks. Three meals a day—that’s it until we find more food.”

Halle frowned. “But we’ll be with Mom tonight. She can make us something for dinner.”

“We won’t see Mom tonight unless we find a car. It’s a long way on foot.”

“How long?” she asked.

Dad glanced back at me. When I didn’t have an answer, his expression perked up. “Maybe a couple of days, Pop Can. No worries. We’ll get there.”

“A couple of days?” she asked, her tone rising with each word.

I cringed. Dad did, too.

“Sorry, kiddo.” That was all he could offer.

I squeezed her hand. “The more we walk, the closer we get.”

“No snacks?” she whined, her bottom lip pulling up.

At the top of the next hill, for only the third time in as many hours, we stopped.

Tobin pointed. “What’s that?”

“Jesus in Heaven,” Tavia said, dabbing the sweat from her neck and chest.

“Infected,” Dad said. “Maybe ten?”