Love and Decay (15 page)

Her eyes flashed bright, crimson red. They
glowed with a strange hue I hadn’t seen before. It was unnerving,
to be honest.

I was certain I’d seen it all. But not
this…

She was like a cat. Her red reflected in the
few streaks of moonlight that reached our pit of despair.

I gripped my blade more firmly. I bent at the
knees and tensed for her attack. I didn’t have to wait long. She
launched herself, heading straight for Adela and the children.

Miller and I met her on either side, lunging
to keep her from reaching those precious things we would die
protecting. Just at the last second, she whipped her head to the
side and faced me.

Miller swiped at her, but she danced out of
the way with scary speed. I held my ground and I caught her arm as
she tried to grab me.

She howled in protest as my blade pinned her
arm to her side. She quickly gave up fighting for her arm and threw
her head forward, jaw already chomping. I kicked out, catching her
in the stomach. She stumbled back where Miller was waiting.

His knife came down on the top of her head
bringing her to the ground. She kicked and flung her arms to the
side, as if unwilling to actually die.

I watched with wide eyes as the life slowly
left her. She fought until the end, screeching and moaning and
trying to murder Miller for his transgressions against her.

Finally she stilled and with her, our
temporary prison fell silent. We stared at her dead body,
unconvinced that she couldn’t come back from the dead to finish
this.

“What the hell was that?” Miller panted.

“I don’t know.”

We had a second’s notice before another
Feeder fell into our hole. The stench of rotting and decay was
almost too much. It suffocated all my rational thoughts beneath the
promise of death.

This Feeder wasn’t as lucky as the last. It
landed upright on a spike that shot straight through the bottom of
its foot and out its shin. I couldn’t stop watching. Even though I
wanted to.

The pike shattered bone as easily as Miller’s
knife stabbed through the dirt walls. Blackish blood spurted out of
the wounds, coating everything around it in the thick grossness. My
stomach flipped with warning and I felt bile climb up the back of
my throat.

The Feeder was completely unfazed by the
accident. Other than the minor inconvenience of being tethered in
the middle of the hole, it lunged forward and swiped at the air
with its elongated claws.

The children screamed in terror and the
Feeder groaned hungrily. I hesitated for a second before I shook
off the disgustingness of the situation and rushed forward.

I reached it just as it tore its leg from the
post and wobbled to the side. The creature hadn’t realized it would
be off balance with only one and a half legs.

Unfortunately for me, I had momentarily
forgotten that too. I plunged my knife through the air to stab it
in the head, but the head was gone. The uneven Zombie fell over,
catching its back on another spike ripping it open.

In return it managed to tear open my shin,
sinking its filthy, jagged nails through my leather pants and
slashing at my skin. I saw Miller move to help me but another
Feeder dropped from the sky before he could get far. He threw
himself at it while I dealt with Legless.

I dropped to my knees, pinning its arm
beneath my knees. Before it could inflict anymore damage on me, I
used two hands to plunge my knife through its forehead.

This Feeder, identical to the last one with
glowing red eyes and the determination not to die kicked out with
its serrated stump and good leg. Its claws managed to scratch at my
calves even while I had them pinned, although this time they didn’t
tear my good pants.

I leaned back away from its other hand while
it continued to jab at me. My blade stayed lodged in its weak skull
until at last the light from its eyes blinked out. Finally, it was
still.

I breathed in deeply and ignored the putrid
stench. My lungs needed oxygen.

I glanced back at the children just to make
sure they were okay. They were traumatized and crying, but they
were alive.

Whew.

When I finally turned to Miller, he was
hovering over his latest kill watching me. He gave me a look that I
easily interpreted as wanting to know if I was okay.

I gave him a weak thumbs up.

He nodded. He didn’t give me a thumbs up in
return, but when he stood up I assumed he was okay as well.

Adela turned around to speak softly to the
children. Jagger and Halen threw themselves at her, burying their
little toe heads in her neck. My heart clenched. I wanted to go to
them, too, but I was covered in blood.

Instead I stood on shaky legs and waited for
more Feeders to appear. After a few minutes had passed I started to
hope that was the last of them.

Reagan and Haley’s heads appeared at the top
of the hole, both streaked with tears.

“What’s wrong?” I instantly demanded. My
heart stopped in my chest. Everything inside me stilled while I
waited for the worst.

They looked at their children. They were
battle torn and covered in blood, but they only had eyes for their
kids. Their husbands joined them seconds later.

“They’re okay,” Hendrix breathed. “Oh, thank
God. They’re okay.”

“This goddamn hole,” Miller grinned up at
them.

Hendrix surveyed the small space with shrewd
eyes. “It looks like you’re lucky to be alive.”

“We all are,” Haley sniffled.

“So no one’s hurt?” I panted. Their tears
were drying. They had been afraid… nothing else.

“We’re fine,” Nelson declared. “But we need
to get going. Let’s get you out of there.” He reached his long arms
down.

For a moment I contemplated telling him to
forget it. I was exhausted after that fight and the adrenaline was
leaving my body. My arms felt too heavy. My eyes drooped with
exhaustion.

Harrison leaned over the hole. “Or you could
stay down there,” he suggested. “We have more incoming.”

All of the heads above disappeared at once.
Damn.

When Hendrix leaned back over it was not with
good news. “Humans this time,” he announced. “I don’t know what
we’re up against.”

I heard Diego shouting in Spanish overhead.
The scientists started yelling at Hendrix, asking him what they
should do. Miller and I looked at each other. In or out? Could we
possibly hide down here? If they were captured, could we figure out
how to get out of this thing on our own?

What if we couldn’t find them?

What if they were killed before we ever made
it out of this hole?

“Get us out!” I shouted up at them.

Nobody appeared to rescue us. Minimal
shouting turned to loud, boisterous yelling. It was hard to make
out anything from down here. All the voices blended together in a
tangle of orders and commands.

Long lights spread over the top of the hole,
shedding unnecessary light on the horrors of our prison. Giving up
on a rescue scenario, I stepped over to the children and gathered
Vaughan and Stevie against me. Adela still held Halen and Jagger.
Lennon was old enough to pretend that he didn’t need comfort.

I tugged at the hem of his shirt and shared a
meaningful look with him. He nodded, his little chin trembling with
the effort to stay brave for his brother, sister and two
cousins.

Miller moved to stand over us. His huge body
was almost big enough to block us completely. Almost, but not
quite.

Light flashed down at us a second later,
reaching all the way into the hole. I blinked up at darkened
shadows hidden behind big flashlights.

“There’s more down here!” One of them
shouted.

More flashlights shone down at us, blinding
us. I held the children closer to me and lifted a hand so that I
could see who stood over us. But it was too dark. I could make out
three shadowy figures, but I couldn’t see faces.

Courage burst to life in my chest though.
We’d just fought off a horde of Zombies. We’d survived the trip
from Colombia. These assholes didn’t know what they were up
against. Even if we were temporarily at a disadvantage.

Until one of them spoke. “We’re going to get
you out of there,” he said with a deep, commanding voice. “We have
your friends at gunpoint. If you fight us, we’ll start
shooting.”

Chapter Four

They pulled us from the hole with little
trouble. Clearly they had done this before.

I had hoped for a better look at them once I
wasn’t buried underground, but they hid behind their bright
flashlights. Three big trucks had pulled up too, each shining
blinding headlights on the bloody battle that had happened here
only minutes before.

I looked around in awe of my family. I
thought four Feeders had been a good number considering our limited
space and obstacles. But my family and friends had taken out at
least twenty Zombies.

That was pretty good considering we hadn’t
been in an actual Feeder fight since before Diego’s Territories. I
was especially impressed with Reagan and Haley. When we were back
in Colombia, they had rarely made it out to the field. And since we
started our journey across continents, they had always stayed with
their children and out of the fighting- for obvious reasons.

Once a badass Zombie killer. Always a badass
Zombie killer.

Miller stayed close to me, but we were still
holding onto children, since their parents were currently being
held by gunpoint.

One of our captors laughed as he took us all
in. “Where the hell did y’all come from?”

We remained silent.

“You should know better than crossing this
land,” another of them warned. “You should have known we would
catch you.”

The third guy leaned into the second. “I
haven’t heard anything about an escape. Nothing has come over the
radio.”

The second guy fell silent, seeming to mull
this over. “Did you escape?” he finally asked. “Or are you from
somewhere else?”

We still remained silent. A flashlight zoned
in on Adela. “Mexican,” whoever stood behind it decided. “You
should know better.”

Shit.

Adela tensed next to me. She was Mexican. And
she was proud to be Mexican. And we were all proud of her for being
Mexican. But in this very specific scenario, her ethnicity was
going to get us caught. Or killed.

“I’m Hispanic,” she declared with the most
deadpan American accent I had ever heard. I held a straight face,
even though I wanted to stare at her. She cleared her throat and
nodded toward Diego. “My husband and I were born here. I was trying
to help my friends get to Mexico. I have family there.”

They didn’t say anything for a very long
time, so it was impossible to tell if they believed her or not. At
last, one of them said, “Load ‘em up. We’ll figure this out back at
the station.”

The sound of guns clicking and shifting in
hands echoed through the night. Few scenarios dampened my resolve
to fight. But they had guns and we had knives.

My brothers sometimes said, “Don’t bring a
knife to a gun show.” That seemed to fit perfectly right about
now.

I picked up Jagger and Adela picked up Halen.
We kept all of the kids close to us as we shuffled around dead
Zombies and through tangled terrain until we reached the rumbling
trucks.

I shared looks with my entire family, but the
guns pointed at our backs kept us moving. “Split ‘em up!” someone
yelled behind us. The other men jumped in to obey.

We outnumbered them. I counted eleven of
them, maybe twelve. And there were twenty-seven of us. But five of
those were children.

And… they had those guns.

Part of me wondered if they had bullets in
them. We had run out so long ago, I couldn’t imagine that they had
anything left in theirs.

At the same time, it wasn’t exactly a theory
I wanted to test.

We stood behind pickup trucks that puttered
black exhaust and smelled like burning diesel. They were covered so
once we were loaded inside, we wouldn’t be able to see each other
and that was the most terrifying thing of all.

I had the kids with me and I knew Reagan and
Haley were going crazy. I hope they trusted me, but I knew none of
us trusted the people that had captured us. Jagger and Halen
started screaming for their mamas the second they realized we
weren’t going to be with them. I tried to shush them, but they
didn’t care what I had to say.

“Hey, shut those kids up,” someone growled
from behind me.

“Shh, Jagger. We’ll see mama soon.” He
squirmed in my arms, desperate and willing to do anything to get to
his mom. Just barely three, he couldn’t possibly understand the
danger we were in. “Jagger, please be quiet,” I begged. He was
hysterical. He jerked in my arms and pushed against me.

“Mama!” he screamed. “I want mama!”

Halen was just as loud. Adela couldn’t hold
on to him and Miller caught him just before he took off running. I
banded my arms around Jagger, willing him to calm down. Reagan and
Haley stood stock still trying to reason with our captors to let
them have their children. But the guards weren’t being
reasonable.

Stevie started crying next to me, too. She
tried to keep it quiet, but couldn’t keep her sniffles a secret.
“Mama!” Jagger and Halen screamed together.

Something hit my shoulder, hard. “I said to
shut them up,” the same guy growled.

“They want their moms,” I hissed at him. “Let
me walk them over. They’ll quiet down if they get what they
want.”

I could hear the grin in his voice when he
said, “You really aren’t from around here are you? Ain’t nobody
gets what they want here.”

I had to count to ten to keep from punching
him in the face. This scenario was only escalating.

“Get him into the truck,” Miller murmured low
enough that he couldn’t be heard over the screams of the toddlers.
“We’ll calm them down once we’re inside.”