Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) (12 page)

“We need to get through that gate!” I shouted
loud enough for everyone to hear. “The Feeders aren’t coming from
over there. I think we could be safe!”

“How do you know?” Vaughan demanded.

Hendrix gave me a confused look, before he
focused on the horde again.

“It’s a hunch!” I didn’t know how to explain
it to them. This wasn’t exactly the most conversation-friendly
environment. I needed more time and more energy. “I just know!”

“We need real answers!” Nelson bellowed. “Not
hunches.”

“Throw something over the wall. I’ll prove
it!”

We kept up our defense while the Zombies
assault never backed down. It took another couple of minutes before
anyone moved to prove anything. I had resigned myself to finding a
different way when Vaughan and Harrison picked up a dead Feeder and
threw it over the gate.

Bang.

One shot this time. But somebody was over
there. We weren’t alone.

“Ah!” King shouted just before he let out a
barrage of bullets. “My arm!” he screamed at whatever had managed
to get him.

“Did it get you?” Vaughan demanded
quickly.

King sounded shaken up when he answered,
“Just with its freaking long fingernails.”

I heard Haley let out a gasping sob. She
couldn’t take much more of this. Lennon was in danger.

“Get through that gate!” I shouted at
Vaughan. “We have to do
something
!”

Through the deafening sounds of gunfire and
Zombies moaning, I heard the rattling of chains and screeching of
rusted metal. Adela started shouting in Spanish, her words rushed
and desperate. She smacked her hand on the wall over and over until
her voice had gone hoarse and tears streaked down her cheeks.

There wasn’t another option. There had to be
somebody on the other side of the gate.

I swapped out my third weapon and started
counting bullets. I couldn’t afford to go through another gun. I
had more magazines in my bag, but it was quicker to grab an already
loaded weapon. I would get to the extra magazines later.

Our supplies were a third of what they were
when we started. Tonight would wipe us out completely and we
weren’t even through the city yet.

“Please,” I whispered.

Something hard hit me in the shoulder and my
shot went wild. I screamed out in pain, afraid I had been
accidentally shot.

Another hit to my cheek and I felt warm blood
track down my face. A rock?
They were throwing rocks?

Those bastards!

I focused on killing whatever was throwing
rocks at me, but then one hit me in the forehead and I dropped my
face into my hand by instinct, cradling my bloodied skin
gently.

“Reagan!” Hendrix shouted in warning.

I looked up and it felt like slow motion. A
Feeder dropped from the roof of the van on top of me. Adela
continued to scream in the background, begging for help while my
friends blasted my enemies with all that they had.

I was dead though.

I had lost focus and managed to get myself
killed.

Or that’s what would have happened if I
weren’t dating the freaking action hero of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Hendrix shot the asshole in the back of the head and we landed on
the ground in a tangle of dead and living limbs.

My gun was beneath me and I wrestled the dead
creature to pull my arms free. When I flipped over another one
stood over me, salivating black ooze and reeking of death. I lifted
my straightened arms and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

My damn gun had jammed from the thick mud and
whatever else I was crawling around in. Shit!

Shit-shit-shit!!!

I grabbed for my messenger bag, but it was
twisted beneath me. I flopped backward, trying to get to my
weapons, but the Feeder sprung for me before I could.

I threw my arms up and rolled out of the way.
It landed next to me, face first in the soppy ground. Its teeth
gnashed at the sludge and its shaking head sprayed the dark goop
everywhere. I managed to get to my side and twist around at the
same time I kicked out at the Feeders head.

It snapped at my shoe while I kicked it
again. Hendrix shouted something at me, but his words didn’t
penetrate my thick cloud of panic. Out of the corner of my eye, I
could see he was involved in his own struggle on the ground.

My heart sped faster than it ever had before.
It beat at my chest with a frantic rhythm, urging me on, demanding
that I survive.

My clothes were thick with mud from rolling
around on the ground and it made my movements sluggish and delayed.
I kept kicking the Feeder, hoping I could break through his fragile
skull.

He latched onto the sole of my boot and
ripped at it, thinking it was flesh. His sharp teeth cut deep into
the rubber and I swear I could feel the heat of his mouth on the
sole of my foot.

I finally pulled out a gun and carefully kept
it away from the mud. But my fingers were layered with the mire and
I was afraid I would jam this one too. I tugged my foot back and
pulled the trigger at the same time. When his head flopped to the
ground, I nearly cried from relief.

But I didn’t have the time.

I jerked into sitting and then to my knees so
I could get a good shot at the Feeder trying to eat Hendrix’s face.
He had his backpack shoved in the creature’s mouth, holding those
deadly teeth at bay.

I heard the fabric rip and tear as the Feeder
fought to get to Hendrix. I took a steadying breath and pulled the
trigger. Mine was the only gunshot I heard over the beating of my
heart.

The Zombie collapsed on top of Hendrix, limp
and lifeless.

Reagan!” Adela’s scream finally penetrated my
haze of adrenaline. “
Ven conmigo
!”

I looked up slowly, slower than I should
have. She stood sandwiched in the open gate, holding out her hand.
Vaughan, King, Harrison and Miller flanked the opening on either
side, waiting for Hendrix and me. Haley, Lennon, Page and Tyler
were nowhere to be found.

Thank, God.

My thigh throbbed. I couldn’t ignore the pain
anymore. I tried to stand up, but my shaking leg gave out and I
splashed in goopy mud.

Hendrix held out his hand and I reached for
it weakly. He grabbed onto me and pulled me to his chest. We were
close to the opening, closer than I realized. Without getting up,
he pulled me with him through the gate. The rest of his brothers
followed and the gate slammed shut.

Hendrix dropped back on the ground and I went
with him, too weak and too traumatized to do anything but lie on
his chest and listen to his heartbeat return to normal.

Hendrix’s hand settled on my back and pressed
me into him. His touch was strong and possessive, familiar and
determined. His other hand reached up to cradle my cheek and I
closed my eyes against the intense relief that zinged through my
body.

Fists and open palms hit at the gate, but
nothing tried to climb over or drop down on us. There was some kind
of invisible barrier that kept the Zombies on the other side. I
didn’t care what it was. All I could get my brain to do was
acknowledge that we were alive.

That we had survived.

But my brain knew better. My experience knew
better. Just because there weren’t Zombies trying to eat us, didn’t
mean we were out of the woods yet.

I opened my eyes to find us circled and at
gunpoint. No surprise there.

Hendrix softened his hold on me and helped me
to sit. Vaughan and Harrison held out their hands to us and pulled
us up.

It wasn’t until I was at my full height that
I realized something was off… like, I was taller than the people
pointing their guns at us.

The sun had started to rise in the east. It
peeked over distant mountaintops and shed pink light on our new
surroundings.

The setting hadn’t changed. We were still
deep in the slums. The muddy roads leading in every direction from
this point were littered with garbage and filth. No bodies lay on
this side of the gate though. No dead contaminated an already toxic
prison.

This side of the gate was inhabited by the
living. The housing was still in terrible shape, but clearly lived
in. Where we had driven through before had been boarded up and
abandoned. These homes held families.

No, wait… They held children by the looks of
it.

Our captors were nothing more than teenagers,
maybe Miller’s age or a little older. Thick dirt caked their small
faces and their ragged clothing. Their bodies were incredibly thin
and emaciated. They had been poor and underfed before the
infection, now they were survivors enduring the worst quality of
life.

Yet, the Zombies didn’t dare cross through
their barricade.

Their hands were steady on their weapons and
their faces were masks of determination. This children’s army had
experience with Feeders and with outsiders. I could see how quickly
they would end us if we crossed a line.

They valued our lives as little as the
Feeders they kept out.

One of them stepped forward. He was barefoot
and knobby-kneed. His black eyes peered out from behind ratted hair
and his jaw was set to mean business.

He started shouting in Spanish. I didn’t
catch a single word he said. Adela stepped forward and let him
focus on her. Thank God for this girl or we would be so
screwed.

When she answered him, her voice remained
calm and maternal. I looked around and searched for parents or
guardians or anyone that could take care of these children.

There was no one.

At least no one that was willing to show his
face.

When the boy spoke again, he had calmed some.
Adela replied quickly, gesturing to us. This time I understood a
little of what she said. She told them that we were Americans and
that we only spoke English.

She had this conversation so often over the
last three weeks that I was pretty sure I could give the speech
myself.

“Americans?” the boy said, a grin lighting
his filthy face. Yellow teeth flashed at us as he surveyed our
group with new eyes.

Adela went off again in rapid Spanish. She
seemed more urgent this time. Whatever the boy had assumed about
us, Adela had decided that he was wrong.

His face immediately lost the new light and
his scowl returned. When he spoke again, it was with a tilted chin
and clear defiance.

“What does he want, Adela?” Vaughan asked
with a gentle tone. He could read the kid too.

She glanced at us over her shoulder and
explained to the boy that she was going to start translating for
us. He jerked his head to the side in a gesture of permission.

“He thought we were here to rescue them.” Her
explanation hit me hard in the stomach. All of the wind rushed out
of me in an empathetic wince. “He thought…” Her voice broke as she
finished her translation. “He thought America had finally arrived
to get rid of their monsters.”

“Where are their parents?” My voice rasped
with my emotion. I couldn’t imagine this had ever been a great
place to live. The trash that littered these streets was not new,
not even in the last three years kind of new. These kids had been
born in one of the poorest places on earth. They faced extreme
poverty, no food, no clean water, no medical services as well as
drugs and sex-trafficking from the very beginning. And if that
wasn’t enough, their homes had been overrun by Feeders.

“Dead,” she explained. “Most of the grownups
are dead. There are more of these kids at each of the walls to
their fortress. There is someone in charge named… er, they call him
the Rat King.
Rata
we say.
Rey de la Rata
. They
protect him. And they protect their home.”

“The Feeders stay out?” Hendrix asked, half
in awe of that possibility and half disgusted by the
circumstances.

Adela translated Hendrix’s question and when
the boy replied, he used lots of angry hand motions and shooting
sounds.

“He says that they taught the Dead to stay
out. They shoot them if they cross over and so they learned to keep
away from their town,
La Ciudad de las Ratas
.” Adela’s tone
conveyed her pain. We all felt for these children that called
themselves rats. They were maybe fourteen at the most and many of
them were younger. Adela translated for the leader when he spoke
again. “He wants to know why we would come here if we aren’t going
to rescue them. He doesn’t understand why we would come to where
there are Dead.”

“Doesn’t he know?” Nelson stepped forward. He
looked up and down the street with new shock. “They have no idea,
do they? They don’t realize this happened to the rest of the
world?”

“Only the rest of the world hasn’t taught the
Feeders boundaries yet. That is something they’ve done all on their
own,” Vaughan pointed out. “Tell them, Adela. Tell them what
everything is like.”

Adela launched into her explanation of the
infection and what played out after that. The kids crowded around
her with wide eyes and horrified expressions. One of the girls
started weeping. She dropped to her knees and rocked back and
forth, clawing at the mud while she sobbed.

“They are upset because they thought it was
only them that had to bear this burden. They thought it was
something that only happened to the very poor as punishment.”

“Punishment for what?” Vaughan demanded.

Adela asked and waited for their reply.
“Punishment for the Cartel and the traffickers. Punishment because…
because they are poor. Because they cannot feed themselves or heal
their sick.”

Tears pricked at my eyes and I wanted to join
the little girl on the ground. “Tell them those things aren’t
true,” I begged her. “They aren’t being punished. At least no more
than the rest of us.”

They watched Adela with wide eyes as she
translated for me. They didn’t understand at first. The words
didn’t reach them. She had to insist that she told them the truth.
I heard it in her tone. She pleaded with them to understand that
even though they were poor, they had worth.