Reawakening (5 page)

Plus, Blake was there. He was right there, by her side. She could hear him breathing even when she didn’t look—slow and steady, in and out. He breathed the way she did, though she figured he’d probably properly learned the technique. Rather than just picking it up due to absolute necessity.

However, she had to say it was kind of gratifying to see his obviously fit-all-his-life moves replicated by her own body, exactly. The way he pumped his arms. The way he kept focused on the terrain ahead. There was really nothing worse, after all, than constantly checking behind yourself for…anything that might be after you.

She’d seen firsthand what checking behind yourself in a blind panic could do. It made you slow even though you might not have thought so. It made you unaware of the obstacles ahead, then suddenly, suddenly…

She drew herself back together and focused on her own breathing. That good burn that was starting, low down in the muscles of her lower legs. Blake probably knew the names of those muscles, but she didn’t. She only knew they burned and burned, and after a while her lungs would start burning—especially in the freezing cold air.

Though she’d learned the hard way that it was better to run in cold conditions than hot. It was one of the reasons they’d made their way North—well, that and the stench. Heat made everything smell bad faster.

The cold kept everything…manageable. Why, the air was almost sweet, here. In fact—it
was
sweet. She could smell the scent that had been all over Blake, fresh and clean and sharp. And when he clapped her on the back and did this little exhausted sounding laugh, it got stronger.

It made her ease up, just a little. He was starting to really drop behind her and that was apparently another thing that kicked her instincts up—though this was of a different sort entirely. This was the one she’d had for Kelsey, the one that had said,
if she drops behind you, find out what’s wrong immediately. Be prepared to fight with her if she can’t run anymore
.

Of course, there had been people she could have left. That psycho from the trailer park who thought he was Rambo. The old couple who’d left their neighbors out to die. A whole assortment of assholes and jerks and outright murderous bastards.

But she would have died before she left Kelsey. Only the bullet had stopped her from going back. And she knew with a sudden jerk that only a bullet would stop her from going back for Blake and Jamie. Only zombie hands on her, zombie hands holding her back, clawing and dragging her down, down into the maze of their hungry mouths…

She stopped dead and turned, just so she could see him and know he was still there. Though rationally she knew he had to be. He wasn’t the type to play hide and seek—hell, Jamie
was
the type, but even he wouldn’t have done it to her—and he couldn’t have fallen or been eaten or any of that awful shit. So she knew she was being silly.

Which only made it worse when he just. Wasn’t. There.

All the hairs on her arms went up the moment she saw the empty forest. It was a familiar feeling—an old friend, in fact—but it seemed more intense in that moment. Everything around her looked still and gray and strange. Suddenly the trees seemed closer together, and when she scanned between them there was an ominous quality to the emptiness.

As though it was just waiting to be filled up. And not by Blake.

She resisted saying his name for a long while—probably longer than she should have. But then if she said his name it meant only one thing. She’d been fooled. Or even worse than that, she’d accepted that something was wrong.

He was missing from view even when he should have been right there, right in front of her. Maybe with his hands on his knees and a rush of harsh breath coming out of him. He could have said something like
you’re fast
or maybe wagged his finger at her for pushing so hard, but instead there was just this crawling silence.

And the hairs prickling all the way up her arms and around to the back of her neck.

Her first and most desperate need was to scrub at those irritated places until the sensation went away but she knew better than that. The drill came back to her as though it had never left—
find Blake, then fastest route to safety, nearest weapon, nearest threat, settle your breathing so you can hear them approaching.

And the answers came real easy, just as they always had in the past. The fastest route was a little to the right of the route she’d just taken, the nearest weapon was a short but pointed fallen tree branch, not three steps from her, there were no current near threats and as for her breathing, well.

She shut it down fast, fast. Then mentally counted back to when she’d lost him. Five seconds meant he’d been ten steps from her, ten seconds meant twenty steps, and so on. He’d been on exactly the same path as her so she didn’t have a wide radius to cover.

It should have been simple, really.

Only it wasn’t.

He wasn’t twenty steps along the path. There were other things along the path—strange things, that definitely hadn’t been there before. A dark shape in the lowlight that looked just like one of them, until she got close and realized with an odd sense of acceptance that it was the mailbox Kelsey had tucked herself behind, while that writhing crowd of zombies had made their way up Mayberry Street.

She’d hidden behind a car, a rusted old thing with no windows, and for the barest second she felt certain she was about to see it. If the mailbox was here then the car had to be here, and oh God, God—where was she, exactly? Where was this?

But more importantly—where was Blake?

She clutched the tree branch tighter and went lower, focusing on the things that currently made sense. In situations like this you had to keep out of sight and be quiet—and especially when zombies had definitely taken Blake.

What other explanation was there? They’d grabbed him and dragged him off someplace. They sometimes did that—she’d seen them do that!—because a lot of them were smart. The ones on Mayberry Street had been smart—hunting in packs like that, searching behind things to find the juicy, blood-filled humans. And here it was worse, much worse, because there were plenty of places to hide, but all of them felt weird, and wrong.

She didn’t want to go near that thing, over there. The grey thing, that looked like the edge of a tent, flapping. It didn’t make any sense that the tent was here—the one they’d found, with the people inside—and it didn’t make any sense that the mailbox was here and oh, how stupid she’d been.

She’d let her guard down, gone out running without a weapon, then let herself get lost in these nonsensical woods. She could have punched herself in the face, if her body had actually allowed her to bend that way.

And if Blake hadn’t been missing, missing, missing.

Lord, how she wanted to call out to him. Just in case it was a joke and they’d all laugh and maybe afterwards she could murder him in a bathtub of acid for scaring the fucking life out of her.

But the thing of it was—she couldn’t call out if the zombies were around. She couldn’t, God no. Calling out would attract hundreds of them immediately, and any chance Blake had would be shot to hell. They’d descend on him and fight over him and rip his body into little bits.

She’d seen that happen, too. Man, there was just nothing she hadn’t seen, nothing, and something about that seemed so grossly unfair she wanted to tear
it
into little bits. Just grab a hold of it with her teeth and wrench it around and…

Blake. He was there, standing by the chain link fence. The one she’d hoped didn’t exist, back when she’d frightened herself with ideas that this place wasn’t really an island. The place had gone on forever and ever inside her head, instead—the way it seemed to right now as she looked past Blake and through the links, to the rolling fields beyond.

She couldn’t stop it. Her body started shuddering all on its own. It wanted to lose control and she had to follow it. The fields, the fields—they looked just like the ones she’d had to pelt across, when the zombies had busted into the park’s bathroom and almost got a hand on her.

Jamie and Blake—they’d lied. Oh no, they’d lied. It wasn’t an island at all and now they’d made her run to this awful echo of her worst memory with no weapon and nothing to help her and oh, why was Blake just standing there at the fence, staring?

No, no, no, why? He wouldn’t be able to hear her because she’d become an expert at stealthy creeping. But even so he was motionless and dead seeming, and there was blood on the metal in front of him. Lots of blood and bits of stuff, and was that blood on his arm, too?

Thirty seconds
, she thought,
thirty seconds
, then pinned down the sob that welled up inside her as though she was a champion wrestler, and it had no more fight than a dry leaf.

She was going to give him a chance. She had the stick—it would go into his temple, no problem at all. Her nerves were still steel. She could still hold onto herself if he turned and snarled. All she needed was one moment, one moment of seeing his turned face then in, in, in.

She just had to reach out a hand to him, first. Slow, slow. Just one wavering hand, moving toward his shoulder as though touching him would magically turn him back. No words, no words, because words could never turn him back. Never.

She’d said enough of them, to know.

When he turned, suddenly—it was fair to say. She almost stabbed anyway. It went beyond an instinct and into something raw and primal, as though some ancient God had the reins of her and jerked them whenever he felt like it.

He jerked them even when Blake turned and was still himself. Completely himself. Nobody on earth could have mistaken those eyes—electric blue and glorious to behold. She almost fainted on seeing them and even when she didn’t, the rest of her attempted something like it. Her arm and legs turned to noodles. The noodles wanted to stagger toward him.

Even when he said something nightmarish and awful like, “We made a mistake. They’re here.” All her mind wanted to do was translate his words into,
it’s okay, I’m alive. Look at how alive I still am! I’m going to grab your hand so you can feel my total and utter humanity.

Which he did, just before they ran. They had to, because he was right. She could see zombies sprinting over the field toward them like bloody streamers, hungry for their blood and their bodies and their sanity.

But that was okay, because she still had all three and so did Blake. He was all right. As long as he was all right and as long as Jamie was too, so was she. She could fly on winged feet, as long as he had hold of her hand.

And when he glanced at her, she knew he felt the same way. He held on so tight, so tight, and he didn’t even let go when they finally got back to the cabin. Not even to get them through the door without wedging. Not even when Jamie saw them both and glanced down at the two hands and she thought, wildly—
it’s okay. I want to hold your hand, too
.

Which was even weirder than all of the winged feet thoughts. But then, that’s what fear did to a person. It made them crazy and it meant she didn’t want to let go, in spite of the need to close the door.

Jamie did it, however. He didn’t even say anything—she could tell he just knew. He bolted it and dropped the shutters on the windows, and said something to Blake—something muddled. Something about the safe room she hadn’t known existed, but that was okay. She hadn’t known the shutters existed, either.

Not to mention how easily she was being led. The urge to tell them that they couldn’t just hide—they had to fight and defend their home—welled up inside her, but something tamped it down just as quickly.

Though she couldn’t say what was doing the tamping, exactly. Something…something…what was it?

“You okay to go in the safe room, June?” Blake said, just as the shutters began rattling. They always banged, when they knew someone was caught inside. Always, always, just incessant banging and banging.

“Yeah. That’s okay. Yeah—let’s go.”

“And you’re not afraid to be in that small space with us, right?”

That was Jamie. Though he didn’t exactly sound like himself.

“No,” she said, and meant it. Why on earth would she be afraid when they were so kind and good and made her have wings in her feet?

“This way, then,” he said, before leading her to some door under the stairs that she couldn’t remember being there.

Though that was okay. It made sense. That was okay. And it was okay that the lighting in the little secret room was kind of pink, and that there was a big red love heart sofa in there, too, and the whole place was small—much smaller than giant pieces of furniture would seem to allow.

“Are you…” she began, but Jamie just closed the door behind them. Shut them all in together in this warm room with the pink light and the big, big love heart.

The banging outside stopped. She thought, idly, that the room must have been soundproofed, but then couldn’t figure out why. So that when you were locked inside, they couldn’t drive you mad?

Maybe. After all they were definitely going to die in here. There was no food, weirdly, and no water—even though the zombies never just let up. She couldn’t think why Blake and Jamie had organized all of this as their last resort.