Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent (11 page)

It was time to check my flanks again, so I hustled to the back of the truck and jumped down to the ground. I saw nothing but trees, bushes, a few parked cars, boats and orderly picnic tables. Not a single, howling, angry White.

Fuck it.

I climbed back into the trailer, grabbed a dolly strapped to one of the walls and lowered it quietly to the ground. I then spent a short while stacking cases of food at the back of the trailer where I could reach them from the ground. Sure, I could have left it all and come back the next day with Murphy. That would have been the safer course of action. But who knew what the situation would be the next day? The trailer might have gotten ransacked by then, or the whole area might be swarming with the naked horde. No. It was better to take the food while the opportunity existed.

Without incident, I carted seven or eight dolly loads from the trailer, across the gravelly parking lot to the ski boat and cajoled Nico into helping me load them. I even took six heavy cases of the fountain syrup. I had no idea what exactly I’d do with them, but those, along with the lard, were concentrated calories. In spite of having little culinary value, those calories could keep us alive for a long, long time.

When I was done, I stored the dolly back inside the trailer, closed, and latched the doors. I got back into the boat, which was sitting low in the water with all the extra weight. But it would float, and that’s all that mattered. I loosed our rope from the dock and pushed the boat back out into the river. Once we were well away from the shore, I dropped the anchor.

“Wh…what are w…we waiting for?” Nico asked me.

“No point in going down river any further. We’ll wait ‘til dark, head back upriver past the boat and then drift back down.”

“I...I’m hungry.”

“We don’t have a can opener, but you can bust into those fortune cookies, if you want.”

Nico reached into a pocket and withdrew a Swiss army knife. He fumbled with it for a minute or more, but didn’t seem to be able to pull out the can opener blade.

“Here, man.” I put out my hand. “I’ll get it. What are you hungry for?”

With full bellies and a relatively cool afternoon,
Nico and I found it easy to nap. We may have even slept on into the evening, had the mosquito buzzing in my ear not woken me as the sun was setting. So according to the plan, we motored back upriver, passed the riverboat with a wave and drifted silently back down under the cover of darkness.

When we finally tied the ski boat to the riverboat and boarded, I’d pretty much forgotten the way the day had started and instead was feeling proud of the trove of food weighing the ski boat
down .

Steph
, though, had only the early morning’s events to think about all day, and she had fire in her eyes when she marched up to me. “What were you thinking?”

Deja
vu. I pointed to the cases loaded into the ski boat. “Look at all the food.”

Murphy brushed past
Steph and slapped me on the back. “Once again, Lucky Zed doesn’t get killed. Heh, heh, heh.”

Dalhover
, who was looking into the ski boat by then, seemed almost happy. “Damn. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Like Murphy said, we got lucky. And there’s more where that came from.”

Steph, not one to show too many emotions, especially not anger, poked me in the chest with her finger and leaned in close. “We need to talk. You go ahead and have your little party here, but we’re talking when you get done unloading.”

She was pretty pissed off, but I didn’t rise to the fight. I gave her a big smile instead. I felt like I’d turned a shitty situation into something good, even if part of the equation was luck.

Murphy loved instigating as much as he loved smiling. With a chuckle, he said, “Me and Top got this. You go right ahead and talk to him, boss.”

Steph
glared at Murphy.

When she turned back to me, I simply said, “We’ve got weapons and ammo. We’ve got food. This is what I do for a living now,
Steph. I scavenge.” Then I shrugged and looked back down into the boat. “I think I’m good at it.”

“Lucky, is more like it.”

I shrugged again and watched Nico shirk any pressure to help Murphy and Dalhover unload the boat. He sauntered past us to take a seat at one of the tables on the lower deck.

Steph
had an extra glare for him as well.

“
Look, quit shooting daggers at everybody,” I said. “It’s me you’re mad at. Just slap my wrist and get it over with, okay?”

And for the first time since I met her,
Steph’s anger got the best of her. “Zed, you just don’t get it, do you? One day you’re going to run off without thinking and get yourself killed, and what then?”

The question was rhetorical, but I was feeling like something of a smartass. “I’ll be dead. What will I care?”

“And what about Murphy and Mandi and Sergeant Dalhover? What about them? What about us?” Steph was nearly yelling at that point. It was so uncharacteristic, she had everyone’s attention, whether she wanted it or not. “What are we supposed to do when you’re dead? Are we just supposed to mourn again? Is that what you want? Don’t you know how much we care about you, Zed? Don’t you know anything?”

Say what?

Steph spun on her heel and stomped off toward the stairs to the upper deck. Behind her, those of us on the lower deck were silent.

After a moment, Murphy said, “You better go talk to her, dude.”

I turned on Murphy. “What’s her deal?”

I glanced
Dalhover’s way. He shook his head and went back to work.

I looked back at Murphy. “What?”

“That was kind of a dipshit thing you did this morning.”

In the background,
Nico added, “Y…yeah.”

“I did what needed to be done to keep us safe, Murphy. Those naked ones know where we are. Something had to be done and I tried to do it.”

“Don’t tell me, man.” Murphy looked toward where Steph had disappeared up the stairs. “You know who you need to explain it to.”

“Why?”

Murphy laughed. “I wish you two would just sleep together and stop acting like junior high kids. Look, man, go talk to her. If nothing else, she’s the boss. We all agreed.”

I rolled my eyes and huffed. Few things irritated me more than having to answer to people in positions of authority. Of course, that train of thought completely circumvented the fact that I was attracted to
Steph.

Murphy nudged my shoulder. “Go.”

“I should wait until she cools down.”

“Man, chicks never cool down.”

“Whatever.”

Murphy nudged me again.

“Fine.” I headed across the deck.

As I walked away, Murphy said, “Don’t forget to say you’re sorry.”

“For what?”

Murphy laughed again. “Does it matter?”

When I got to the stairs, Mandi, Russell and Megan were coming down. I asked, “Are Amy and Brittany on watch?”

“Yes,”
Mandi said as she brushed by. Then she turned and called back in her usual bubbly tone, “Glad you weren’t killed this morning.”

“Thanks.” I climbed the stairs.

When I came out on deck two, I immediately spotted Brittany sitting in a chair, concealed behind the rail near the bow. At the stern starboard side of the boat, Amy was standing near the ladder that led up to the roof of the pilothouse. When I looked at her, she pursed her lips and pointed up.

I walked over to the ladder and grabbed a rung. Before climbing, I said, “We came back with a bunch of food. The guys are unloading it down on deck one.”

Amy looked up. “She worried about you all day.” She put a hand on my arm. “Really, she did.”

“She worries about all of us. She’s in charge.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

I started to climb the ladder.

Amy said, “I’m glad you made it back.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll bet you were a lot of fun to have around before all this virus crap happened.”

“Not really.” I made my way up to the roof.

Steph was sitting on the stern of the pilothouse roof, dangling her feet off the edge. I walked across the roof and peered over the edge. “That’s a long way down.”

“It’s not that far.”

“Mind if I sit?”

Steph
looked up at me. “I lost my temper. I’m sorry. I’m always the calm one. That’s what people say about me. I’m even-keeled. I never get overly emotional about anything.”

“It happens.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. Can I sit?”

“Of course.”

I sat beside her. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

I chuckled. “Murphy told me that part wasn’t important.”

Steph shook her head, smiled wanly and punched my arm. “I’d hate to hear what men must really think of women.”

“In your case, we all respect you. That’s why you’re the boss.”

“I’m the boss because I’m bossy.”

“At the risk of getting all longwinded about it, that’s probably just one of those societal things. I think women—”

“Stop.”

I looked at
Steph.

“I’m not in the mood for one of your rambling sociological theories.”

I shrugged. “It happens. Look, I’m sorry about going out on the boat this morning. I really thought I was doing what was best for us all. The girls heard noises on the bank. I thought it might be the infected and I went out to investigate. I didn’t mean to do something about it, but when I saw it was just one naked guy, I thought I might solve a problem at little risk to myself and keep us all just that much safer.”

Steph
looked at me. “But he wasn’t alone, was he?”

I shook my head. Of course he hadn’t been alone.

“You don’t think these things through, Zed.”

“It was foggy.”

“You’re making excuses.”

Sure, that was true.
I looked out at the water.

“I think maybe you’re so good at laying your bullshit on people that sometimes you believe it
, too.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It’s nothing, Zed, just an observation. You knew more infected could be on shore. You acted on impulse—an impulse to do something for the good of the group—but an impulse just the same. Because you did, you put both you and Nico in danger.”

I took a few deep breaths as I tried to think of a good counterargument, but it was always hard to argue against the truth. “Yeah, but I don’t know what else I could have done. I really just went out to investigate. When I saw that White was alone, I knew I could take him out. It was…it happened so fast. I didn’t think about the possibility that other infected might be there.”

“Have you always been that way?”

“What way?”

“Impulsive.”

I shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”

“You never think things through?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Looking at her, I said, “I think I tend to think things through. At least I used to. But things are different now. I don’t always have time to think things through. Lots of times, I just have to react. Sometimes that’s saved me.”

“Would you say you’ve gotten more impulsive since you got the fever?”

I was taken aback with that. “What? Are you saying the virus has maybe made me… I don’t know, maybe it’s made me less apt to think? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t know, Zed. I’m just trying to understand.”

I got up and paced back and forth a few times, getting a little agitated. “I think it’s the situation.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The world changed when the virus hit. People who did things the same way they used to do them are all dead now. People who adapted aren’t.”

“So impulsiveness is a survival adaptation?”

“I don’t know.” I was irritated with the line of questioning. “Maybe. I’m just saying I’m doing some things differently. I’m still alive. I’d like to think some of you guys are too because of me.”

Looking up at me, Steph said, “Come sit back down. Okay?”

I deliberately looked out into the darkness on both sides of the boat before I complied.

“Zed, it’s okay if you do things differently now. It’s even okay if maybe it’s the virus that made you a little more impulsive than you used to be. I just worry about you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t just say that.”

“I can handle myself fine with the infected. I don’t know why, but I do. I’m good at it.”

“It’s not the infected you see that worry me, Zed. It’s the ones you don’t see.”

“I’ll be more careful next time. I’ll look more closely.”

“And that’s exactly my point, but not in the way that you think.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“You think your only danger this morning was that White you killed by the tree. And you think your only unseen danger were the Whites hiding in the bushes and the fog.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you even think about Nico?”

I didn’t know how to respond.

Steph read that on my face and continued. “I’m worried about him.”

“Did you think he was going to go all
Freitag on me?”

Steph
shook her head, obviously trying to come up with the best way to say something. “I’ll just be blunt. Zed, his temperature concerns me.”

“Is it high?”

Steph nodded.

I look
ed for the right words, daring to ask a question I might not like the answer to. “Higher than mine?”

Steph
nodded.

“And Murphy’s?”

“His is higher than Murphy’s.”

“And Russell’s?”

“Close to the same.”

“His temperature is close to Russell’s?”

“Yes.”

“Holy crap. I wonder…”

“What do you wonder?”

I looked over my shoulder as though I might see down through the deck. “Do you think his temperature is going up?”

“I’ll check him again in the morning. Why do you ask?”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share anything. I wasn’t sure if anything I shared might somehow cast a pall on me. “He’s been acting weird since we picked him up at Mr. Mays’ house.”

“I agree, but what do you mean?”

“It’s hard to say. But before, he was… I don’t know. He wasn’t emotional at all. Now he seems like he’s a basket case.”

“Trauma can do that,” Steph said.

“Before, he wouldn’t stop talking. Now…”

“He doesn’t talk that much.”

“And he stutters.”

“He didn’t stutter before?”

I shook my head emphatically. “Not once. He could say more in a minute than I could in a week. He definitely didn’t stutter. You think his temperature going up is causing that?”