Love and Decay (20 page)

Everywhere we turned we witnessed more war
torn desecration and ruin than the last. The infection seemed to
have evolved into something beyond human decay. This disease
plagued everything it touched. It rotted buildings and homes. It
brought cities into ruins and countryside into wasteland.

It turned life into death.

Living into dying.

Settlements did not exist that were outside
the Colony’s protection. Whatever remained of the population
clustered together under armies of men that were as dangerous as
the Feeders outside the gates. They clung to the shreds of their
humanity with weakened fists and jagged fingernails.

They were as worn and changed as the Feeders
that drove them inside their freshly reinforced walls.

Houses had been ravaged and destroyed by men
or weather. Buildings crumbled. Cities were plundered and left to
rot. Country sides had been infested with dead bodies and roaming
hordes.

The land I had dreamt about was still the
wasteland from my memories.

Only more so now than ever.

I wanted to see that I had been wrong. I
wanted to find hope and a world worth fighting for.

Instead I found despair and a war bigger than
I could have ever imagined.

“It’s worse than I remembered,” Reagan
muttered next to me, echoing my exact thoughts.

I continued to stare out the window. I was
sitting in a middle seat with Reagan and Jagger on one side and
Miller on the other. Hendrix sat in the front seat next to Luke and
Vaughan sat between them. Tyler and Shay had called the small space
in the back. The rest of our group and Luke’s were dispersed in
several vehicles, including the one we’d stolen from the
Colony.

“These areas are completely abandoned,” Luke
explained, his voice carrying over the roar of the engine. “The
Colony has focused all its rebuilding efforts on the colonized
cities. They’re spread out through most of the Midwest, but left a
lot of empty spaces. Feeders fill in wherever humans abandon and
just… well, you can see what they do.”

“They live together?” Shay asked from the
back. “Like in nomadic hordes?”

Luke turned around briefly, “Yeah. From what
we can tell. They run together in packs. They’ve become pretty
advanced, especially in the last few years. They can set traps.
They can play dead. They can be soundless if they want to be. They
just keep getting smarter.”

“How does the Colony handle them?” Hendrix
asked.

Luke answered, “They don’t. They let them run
wild. It’s easier to control the population when the hounds of hell
are waiting outside the gates of your city.”

“And everyone just puts up with that?” I
demanded. “Why haven’t they rioted? Why haven’t they stood up for
themselves?”

Luke glanced over his shoulder at me, a
condescending smirk on his face. “Riot with what? Pitchforks? The
Colony doesn’t allow them to have weapons. These people don’t know
how to protect themselves against a Feeder, let alone armed
soldiers that are ordered to execute any outspoken zealots on the
spot.” His hands wrapped so tightly around the faded steering wheel
that his knuckles turned white. “It doesn’t even have to be that
extreme. They’ll kill any threat of opposition. They silence the
people by feeding them fear and a healthy dose of public torture.
And if that doesn’t silence them? Death. Immediate and final. The
people don’t stand a chance.”

I slid forward in my seat, resting both hands
on the bench seat in front of me. “What about the ones you rescue?
They’re standing up for themselves just by getting out. Doesn’t
that set an example for the others?”

“All the people in the cities know is that
their neighbors have disappeared,” he snapped back. “They don’t
know where they went or if they went of their own free will. So no,
it doesn’t set an example. It just heaps more fear onto already
terrified people.”

“That can’t-”

He cut me off by saying, “And those people we
rescue? They don’t know how to fend for themselves. They’re like
abused puppies. They cower in the corner waiting for the Colony to
show up and drag them back to the pits of hell. They can’t defend
themselves. They can’t provide for themselves. They can’t even
think for themselves. They’re helpless and hurting and…” He ran a
hand over his face, scrubbing at it roughly. “Useless. They’re
useless.”

Tension spiked in the car. Resentment and
anger burned through me, pooling in my belly and searing up my
spine. Reagan sat up, clutching Jagger against her chest.

“How can you say that?” she hissed. “They’ve
been living in the worst kind of conditions for ten years. How can
you call them useless?”

Luke stared straight ahead, his body frozen
with matching irritation. “Because they are,” he growled. “Because
I can’t teach them to fight. I usually can’t even get them to go
outside again. I need men and women willing to fight the Colony so
this shit stops happening. For every person we rescue, more of our
resources are drained. We’re put at a bigger risk of being
discovered. We have more people to protect and feed and train. And
yet my fighters keep dying. The people that will actually do some
good in this world keep disappearing and I’m left with people who
can’t crawl out of the fetal position. You can cry all you want and
call me any manner of asshole, but this is the truth. And this is
what you’re walking into. There’s no hiding it. There’s no denying
it. It’s better that I warn you about it now rather than let you
walk in blind.”

I couldn’t stay quiet. I had to speak up. My
heart raced with conviction and the argument on fire inside me.
“B-but you’re saving people! Isn’t that the whole point of what
you’re trying to do?”

His gaze lifted to the review mirror and held
mine. “For every casualty of war I have to take care of, I take one
step back from defeating Matthias Allen.”

I slid forward and dug my nails into the
vinyl seat. “So what’s your goal? Are you even trying to save
America? Or are you just trying to win?”

His gaze shifted back to the road. “Is there
a difference?”

I shook my head with disbelief. This was not
the man that had written me letters. This was not the ally I’d
risked everything to help. “Yes,” I rasped so quietly I wasn’t sure
he could even hear me over the grumble of the engine.

His gaze lifted to mine again in that mirror.
“You haven’t seen it yet, Page. But you will. America can’t be
saved. America is dead.”

My heart thumped painfully in the cage of my
chest. I had the strangest urge to claw at my shirt and my skin and
my bones. I wanted to rip that stupid feeling, beating,
ridiculously alive organ out of my body and throw it away.

It had betrayed me.

It had led me to think Luke and I wanted the
same things.

It had promised this was where my destiny
was… where I was supposed to be.

It had sworn that it would take me here, to
this place, and I could make a difference somehow.

A hand wrapped around my waist and tugged me
back, into the curve of his warm body. Miller kept his arm around
my waist, resting his palm on my belly. His nose grazed over my ear
and temple, reminding me that he was there.

Reminding me that my heart still had
purpose.

“Let it be, Parker,” he murmured in my ear.
“Not everyone is the bleeding heart you are.”

I pressed my lips together. Maybe he was
right. Maybe I couldn’t expect Luke to want to save the whole world
when he had to think about the logistics of what it cost.

We were still united in our desire to end the
Colony and Matthias Allen. And that counted for something,
right?

Sure.

Howling interrupted my thoughts, breaking
through the fresh silence in the vehicle with jolting aggression.
Miller’s grip on my waist tightened and Luke immediately slammed on
the brakes right in the middle of the road.

I split my attention between staring at the
window and watching Luke grab at something under his seat. He
yanked out a piece of paper and unfolded it over his steering
wheel. A map.

A flashlight came next as he scanned the map
for whatever he was looking for.

A second howl joined the first. The ungodly
pitch screamed through the night.

Feeders. I recognized them now.

Shadowy figures appeared on the road ahead of
us. From their hunched over and uneven outlines I could identify
them without being able to see them clearly.

“Can’t you drive through them?” Hendrix
asked. His arms banded around Vaughan as he dragged his son closer
to him.

Luke didn’t look up. “That’s what I’m going
to try to do.” He pulled out a handheld radio and barked orders
into it. “We’re going through, ladies and gentlemen. We’re close to
Allentown and I’d rather stop at the designated spot.”

He got a series of responses back. We were
the lead car and the caravan behind us stretched on for a while.
Nobody argued with him. Mostly, he got a bunch of, “Yes, sirs.”

Tyler leaned forward. “Is that the original
name of the city?”

Luke turned around and raised one eyebrow.
“What do you think?”

She slapped Miller on the shoulder. “Hey, we
have a city named after us. How about that?”

Miller snorted.

Luke explained, “More than one. Allentown,
Allenville, Allen City, Allen Rapids, Allen Falls, Allen Valley,
and my personal favorite… Allentopia. Your old man isn’t very
creative.”

Miller looked out the window. “I’m actually
embarrassed for him.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that,”
Tyler murmured as she sat back down. “It’s kind of desperate.”

“More than kind of,” Luke agreed.

Reagan snickered and slapped a hand over her
mouth. But pretty soon she couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Oh, my
god, it’s amazing.”

“Stop it!” Tyler cried while trying not to
laugh.

Reagan laughed on. “I can’t help it.
Allentopia?” And she dissolved into more laughter.

It was impossible not to laugh with her.

“There are Zombies outside,” Miller reminded
me. “You don’t have time to laugh at my family name.”

Which of course only made Reagan and I laugh
harder.

Luke mumbled something under his breath about
how he didn’t see how any of this was funny. Consequently, Reagan
and I laughed even harder.

“You two are out of your minds,” Hendrix
commented, clearly amused.

We sobered some when Luke punched the gas and
the SUV gunned forward. I wiped a tear from my eye while Luke
flipped on the headlights and Feeders sprang forward, ready to
attack the vehicle.

The Feeders waited for us without flinching.
I could sense their hunger whipping through the air. I could see
the ravenous look on their rotting expressions. They stood there,
waiting for us to come to them. They didn’t move. They didn’t
run.

They just waited.

It was one of the eeriest sights I’d ever
seen.

And that was saying something since not that
long ago I’d been surrounded by white-powdered cannibals.

“They’ll latch on,” he shouted at us. “Be
ready to fight.” He glanced around the car one more time. “And no
guns,” he added. “Gun shots carry. We’ll have more than we can
handle if we manage to grab the attention of a patrol.”

We sat there in stunned silence for a second.
“We don’t have any guns,” I finally explained.

“We haven’t used guns in more than five
years,” Hendrix sounded as bewildered as I did.

Luke glanced at Hendrix again. “Oh.”

“Switch places with me,” Reagan ordered
me.

Miller released his hold on me and I stood up
as best I could so Reagan could slide to the middle seat with
Jagger on her lap. As soon as we were settled again, Hendrix
instructed Vaughan to climb over the seat and sit on the ground at
Reagan’s feet.

The transfer happened seamlessly. My nephews
knew how to listen without hesitation and their parents knew how to
protect them.

Luke leaned forward, over the steering wheel
and with more enthusiasm than I had heard from him so far, and
warned, “Brace yourselves.”

He plowed through the line of Feeders,
running several over in one fell swoop. Their bodies landed beneath
the tires and we bounced over them, cringing at the sound they
made.

I thought that might be the end of them. All
we had to do was keep going.

But the initial casualties had turned out to
be a road block, slowing us down. The surrounding Feeders did
exactly as Luke had said they would and latched on to the roof and
side mirrors. Haunting faces pressed against the dirty glass while
their blackened teeth snapped at us.

The engine growled as Luke stomped down on
the gas and accelerated. The Feeders held on with unprecedented
strength. Their bleached bones winked at us in the moonlight,
flashing stringy sinew and dried blood. I expected them to snap
apart, breaking like weak twigs.

Instead, they held on with one hand and
dragged their cracked, elongated fingernails over the window.
Jagger started crying and Reagan hurried to hush and quiet him.

Bam!

One of their fists came down heavily on the
glass, rattling it from the inhuman strength. Luke whipped the car
to the side, then to the other side. I realized he was trying to
dislodge them. But he couldn’t seem to shake them.

“They’re catching up!” Shay shouted with her
Australian accent. “I’ve never seen them this fast before,” she
gasped, echoing around the close space. “They’re helping each
other. They’re propelling each other forward. Where is Oliver? Can
Fang see this?”

I shared a look with Miller over Reagan’s
head. Only Shay would find this fascinating.

“You have to get them off!” Luke shouted over
the screeching Feeders and rumbling engine. “They’re slowing us
down. They’ll try to tip us over!”