Mostly Dead (Barely Alive #3) (13 page)

“Paul
, no!” Heather’s cry didn’t lessen my anger.

Connie’s
fingers scrabbled at my wrists and her eyes bulged. Dominic laughed in my head and pushed me on. “
Squeeze. Squeeze. Kill the bitch
.”

Tension in my hands could have snapped a tree in half. I lowered my arms, dropping her to her feet. I released her neck and breathed deep to keep from shoving her through the window. “Figure this out.
We just vaccinated over twenty-five-hundred people and promised them they wouldn’t get the virus—”

“This isn’t the virus.” Connie glared at me and rubbed her neck.

I arched my eyebrows and pointed at Mom and Grandma Jean. “Then what the hell is this? It looks like the virus.”

Connie moved past me and grabbed Grandma Jean’s wrist. She watched the clock on the wall. After ten seconds had passed, she repositioned the wrist and spoke to Travis, ignoring me altogether. “Her heart rate is accelerated, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the fever or because I was touching her. She tried moving, but not as much as Nancy did.” Connie stared at the glass-like top of the table. Travis watched her.

Heather hadn’t moved. I shifted my gaze her way, embarrassment holding me back from speaking. She avoided my eyes, clutching her arms around her waist. Her wet cheeks made me feel worse, but not for how I treated Connie… how I’d scared Heather.

How I had almost allowed Dominic to make a decision for me.

“Figure this out.” I turned from the room and stomped outside. James and I had gotten separated and so many things had happened. I couldn’t believe how prophetic his statement had been. I needed to find him. And fast.

Frustration split my mouth and I yelled his name, when I probably could have just thought it.

“Hey.” James stepped from behind a shed.

Startled, I spun around. Relief dropped my shoulders. I walked toward him. “You’ll never believe what happened. That damn vaccine…” But James’s stance seemed overprotective, like he didn’t want me to come closer.
I raised my hands to chest level and walked slower. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t move, just ducked his head. He couldn’t hide his eyes shifting to the left, toward where he’d just come from. A small sneeze from the same direction gave away his secret. He closed his eyes and hung his head.

“Again, what’s going on?” I stopped where I was. James wasn’t four. He didn’t need me discovering his secrets like he was in trouble, but we were in a situation where I needed to know what and who was around. We could never be too sure that Dominic hadn’t sent more people into our circle – like Brian.

The toe of a shoe poked out from behind the shed. I waited.

James opened his eyes. He stared at me, as if judging how and what to say. Then he just started, and hell, if he reached a speed I’d never be able to stop. “I saw them in town. I couldn’t leave them alone. She stole one of the bikes and followed us here. I’m sorry, but they can’t be out there. I can’t let them be out there for Dominic to find. He wouldn’t let them live.” Desperation creased his brow and held his shoulders hunched.

“Who?” I relaxed my stance. Something in my attitude was putting him on edge. He’d never open up to me, if I didn’t get rid of it.

The girl from the church in Nowhereville, Idaho stepped out beside James. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, her sister close to her side. She lifted her fingers and waved them, but didn’t say anything.

“Okay?” I looked at James and tilted my head. “Seriously, you think this is something to hide? Wait until you see what I invited to follow us.” The laugh rolled out of me, but in my head Dominic’s voice matched mine, chuckle for chuckle. I stopped and grabbed my head. “James, do you remember how close to Dominic we had to be for him to be in your head?”

James held the girl’s hand. An increase in the pounding in my head made me wince. He shrugged, but stepped out with her at his side. “About a mile or so? Why?”

I turned toward the house and motioned them to follow. “Because he’s almost here.” And I hadn’
t seen one vaccinated human show up.

Travis approached me on the porch. I’d moved to stand beside the swing and watch the drive.

He didn’t bow down or anything, just something about the way he held his head made me feel like he was acting subservient and it irritated the hell out of me which didn’t help my tone or my mood. I smoothed my tongue over my teeth and refused to look at him.

Nobody moved on the road. Hadn’t they heard me? Didn’t they care?

He cleared his throat. “Look, Paul. I think you were out of line back there. Connie didn’t know—”

I spun on the ball of my foot and jabbed my finger an inch from his nose. “No, shit, she didn’t know. You didn’t know. That’s the damn problem. You didn’t know! And now we have no idea what’s happening to Grandma Jean and Mom. They are grayer than me. I’ve been infected for weeks and they’ve been vaccinated just over twenty-four hours. Dammit, Travis.” My steam ran out. I sank to the porch-railing and shoved my face in my hands. “We vaccinated all those people…”

It hadn’t been the full twenty-four hours for them to have any reactions. I didn’t know how vaccines worked exactly, but something seemed off. Travis didn’t say anything else, but disappeared inside the house.

Overcome by injustice, I transferred my butt to the porch swing and pushed myself back and forth with a toe. The gray hadn’t even started on my fingertips. I’d eaten so much meat, my brain hummed.

Dominic was afraid of women. He raped them and killed them, but wouldn’t give them the powers that he had. I didn’t care why or what happened to him, all I could think about was the puzzle I needed to make the piece fit into.

If Dominic didn’t like women, how did that help me? If Dominic had some kind of mental value in my mind – to some unknown extent – I needed to figure out how much. He’d stopped before when I’d yelled at him, but that had been all he’d done.

We had all those people who would, presumably, the next morning fall comatose.

I
peered into the dusk shadowed trees surrounding the house and drive. Nothing I did before I died would fix the mistakes I’d made. Blaming everyone else for my faults wouldn’t leave terrific memories of me behind and that’s what it had come down to – the memories of me with my loved ones. Heather was horrified and I’d tried killing Connie. James thought I would be mad that he had saved some girls. What kind of a monster was I?

A zombie… that’s what kind.

But seriously, Connie needed to be bitch-slapped. Something in her eyes hinted that the virus might be affecting her in worse ways than losing her life.

Movement in the trees broke shafts of afternoon sunlight.
I stopped pushing the swing and watched carefully for more motion. If I saw one more damn shape in the trees turn out to be zombies, I was going to kill something.

Shadows – not one or two, but tens and more – crept over the forest floor. I held my breath, prepared to scream, to shout, do whatever it took to warn everyone. But the rough-looking man
with the cross tattoo from the crowd stepped into the clearing. He held up his hand and looked around the house. His gaze fell on me and he nodded, ever so slowly.

I left the swing and sauntered down the steps, relief washing away the unreliable notion that maybe Dominic’s army had eaten the rest of the people we’d tried saving. I reached him and offered my hand. “Nice to see you. Wasn’t sure if you would all make it.”

More emerged, in groups and individually, onto the grass and around the buildings. Many scoped out the area and watched behind them.

The man shook my hand, and pointed toward the steadily growing number of people. “We found some that haven’t been vaccinated yet, but we figured you didn’t care who you got as long as they aren’t infected.” He studied me, his mouth set. “Was I right?”

I pressed my lips together before answering. “Of course, you were right.” I doubted we had food for that many people but we hopefully wouldn’t need to be there long.

Dominic’s voice had fallen silent. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Did it mean he’d moved further away?

“
Did you see any of them when you came this way?” The human odors didn’t move me. Too bad I hadn’t learned the lesson sooner that eating more human would stave off the hunger and deterioration longer. Not that I would have killed anyone, but dead people could be found just about anywhere. Like roadkill.

The man searched the faces of the other people with him. “I think we might have seen some down by the intersection splitting off to Canada, but they were gone before we could do anything about it.”
He smirked. “You don’t look like you’re as prepared as you said.”

“It doesn’t take long to set the forest on fire. Wouldn’t want it burnt out before they get here, you know?” I set my jaw. Irritating to be called out. “Come on in, let’s get set up. I don’t have extra food…”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. We have a van and a lot of us are packing some food we took from the store on the way here.” He stepped beside me and like a break in a dam, the people flooded the lawn, milling about and pointing here and there. Many sat and rested their heads on their arms. It’d been a long day judging by the things they’d been through. It was about to get longer.

I didn’t ask him his name. I didn’t want to get too close to this man that would fall down in a vaccine-induced coma the next day. Hopefully, after the attack from Dominic, but who could guess when that asshole was going to arrive.

No question needed to be asked. He volunteered his information. “The name’s Johnson, Chris Johnson. Most people call me C.J.”

Crap
, I couldn’t seem to catch a break. I didn’t want to know him. Having a name to put to the dead body when I might be eating his ass later was not a good idea – kind of gross, actually. “Nice to meet you, C.J. I’m Paul. The tall, lanky one wandering around is my brother, James. There are a few people in the house as well. When they make an appearance, I’ll introduce you.” A subtle tingle pinged in my toe tips. Uh, oh. I tried ignoring the signs that hunger crept up on me. I could handle it. If not, I’d make an escape and find some dead person to munch on. No biggy, right?

Terrifying how fast I’d slid to justifying the ingestion of people. Maybe I really didn’t think I was going to make it.

Damn it. I had to face my death. I wasn’t going to live. I had to accept it. Subconsciously I think I had. But my mind had to catch up.

James showed up beside me
. I grabbed his shoulder with relief. “James! I was just talking about you. This is C.J. He came with the other people.”

C.J. shook James’s hand and motioned toward the grounds. “Should we start a fire around the road or do you have something else in mind?”

Breaking in, James looked pointedly in my direction. “Do you mind if I handle this, Paul? Mom and I discussed this earlier and some things have been started already.”

“Yeah
. I have to run inside and check on the girls, anyway.” If I read his look right, he’d heard the tension in my thoughts and had come to rescue me. I’d take it. Hell, if I wouldn’t rather be checking on Mom and Heather. Delegating worked for me.

Turning toward the house, I
roughly estimated the amount of people. I stopped and turned to the side, addressing C.J. but including James. “Did you only bring about hundred or so with you? There were a lot more at the hospital.”

Determination dimmed the light in C.J.’s eyes. His lips hardened and the cross tattooed on his forehead slimmed with his brows knitting together. “More than half refused to come. Said they just wanted to go home.
” He stuffed a hand into the front pocket of his worn jeans. “After seeing these monsters in action, there’s no way I’ll ever feel comfortable unless it’s in a group environment.”

We all stared at the refugees in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Thankfully, James didn’t try to talk to me mentally. I didn’t know if I could handle any more mental capacity testers. He seemed to adjust well to me invading his mind. But hell, I didn’t try
going in his head and Dominic tried jumping inside mine whenever he wanted. The unwarranted invasions stung like lightning bolts through my brain.

C.J. sighed and turned to me. “Can I level with you boys?”

Oh, great. What now? He’s a zombie spy? Like a James Bond but instead of double-O-seven, he was double-O-dead? Hell, I’d kill him right there, if he turned out to be like Brian.

“I don’t have any
illusions that we’re going to win this fight. Those things stopped at the hospital but only because they were told to. No other reason.” He fingered his earlobe, where three small hoops dangled. “These people are here because they didn’t want to die alone. And I honestly don’t blame them. But do you think we can at least fight? Instead of just sitting here, waiting to die?” Okay, not a spy. Lucky for him.

I stepped in front of him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. Low, just for his ears, I said, “We have more of a chance than those people who left. If we can get rid of the leader of this group, we might be able to focus on the rogue zombies taking over the country. But only if we can get rid of this guy.”