Tainted Grace (19 page)

I grabbed behind his shoulders, feeling his muscles relax and contract in rhythm with his desperate efforts to be one with me. For a long, drawn out moment of rippling pleasure I found that it was indeed just me and him...just us…us and the moment.
The rest of the world faded away as we climaxed together.

After our indiscretion by the river, Gus had looked me over and determined that the pregnancy was progressing.
He said my uterus felt a bit larger than it should. I tried not to worry. According to what he recalled from his obstetrics rotation years ago, the baby should still be nestled deep within my pelvis. Together we decided that the green streaks from my hip had advanced by a few inches over the past few days. I could tell Gus was worried.

I sat in the middle row now with little Jane beside me.
On my other side were Gus and then Emilie. I stared out the window lazily. Trees with bare branches blended together to form a dismal backdrop. Winter in this corner of the world was never pretty unless it snowed. I was glad the streets were bare. Jane was hugging her teddy bear and sucking her thumb again.

“See the big icicles on the cliff, Jane?” I asked.

She nodded, her fist and thumb moving along with her head.

“Those are frozen waterfalls.”

“Really?” she asked. The question came out funny-sounding from her thumb claiming her mouth.

“Uh-huh.”

“Cool.”

She turned her head to me and nestled against my side.

“Yuck,” she mumbled.

Jane had seen a carcass along the side of the road.
Not much more to it than bloodied bones. The only way I had recognized it as being a deer was by the antlers.

“Gross,” agreed Kelsey from the back seat.
“What’s next?”

“We need to find a boat, the quicker the better,” said Boggs.
“We’re not all that far from the Sound now.”

I interrupted.
“The dead are close.” The buzzing in my head and the pain in my hip was sharper than it had ever been, and it felt like a knife was being pressed into my temple. I winced.

“Zo?
You ok?” asked Gus.

I shook my head no, and used both hands to squeeze at my head, attempting to counteract the terrible pressure within.

“There’s so many of them,” I moaned.

“Nathan, stop the car,” said Gus.

“Jane, honey, can you climb in back with Abbey and Kelsey?” asked Em softly.

I was glad.
I needed space. I needed air.

I felt the Suburban come to a rough stop.

“Zoe, look at me,” said Gus.

I sat up and took my hands away from my head, and looked into his eyes.
Just me and you I said in my mind. I focused on his eyes while he spoke to me. I knew I had to pay attention, now more than ever. A battle was brewing and our lives would depend on it.

“Zoe, what’s happening?” Gus asked me, his voice deep and serious.

“They’re at the interstate. About a mile up. Thousands of them. Gus, they’re everywhere. Oh God my head hurts,” I said through my teeth.

“Breathe, Zoe,” said Emilie in a soft, calming voice.

“What now?” asked Boggs. “Gus, she’s in pain.”

“I know, and we’ll deal with that as soon as we can.
Nate, Boggs, Susan, we need to go through the box of guns in the back,” said Gus without pausing to think.

“Let me help,” I said.

“You should wait here with the kids, Zoe,” said Gus.

“No.
I need to help. I need to stay busy. And I need some air.”

Gus nodded.
“Ok, let’s do it.”

Six of us filed out and headed to the rear of the car.
Boggs opened the back doors and Nathan quickly produced the cardboard box they had filled with weapons from the compound. Gus and Nathan both set to quick work inspecting the various firearms and packages of ammo. We loaded the weapons and set them strategically around the vehicle, under seats, at our feet. Places that would be easy to reach.

Kelsey, Abbey, and Jane all got out of the car to stretch and relieve themselves.
Both Abbey and Kelsey were given hand guns with a brief lesson. Gus was frank with them, and had explained that should it come down to it we all had a right to go down fighting. Jane was just too small to handle a weapon.

I was doing my best to cope with the pains in my hip and head, as well as the realization that we were about to face pure evil.
The fresh air seemed to ease the pain a bit, and clear my head if just slightly. I knew that the closest of the dead were aware of us, and were headed in our direction. As a group, we had discussed turning around. It seemed pointless, though, since we had left another horde behind. I was sure now that they too were making their way toward us.

As I stood at the front of the car, staring down the highway, Boggs stepped beside me.

“Think they’re close?” he asked.

“Yes.
A few of them.”

“Zoe, I know you’re mad at me.
Rightfully so.”

“Damn right,” I said, and then sighed.
I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I want you stay safe today, Zoe.
Losing you would kill me.”

I wondered if he knew.
I wondered if his words had more than one meaning.

“Promise me you’ll listen to us today, keep your eyes open, and keep your wits about you.
We can figure the rest out later.”

“’Kay,” I said, knowing he was right.

I uncrossed my arms, reached to the back of my pants, and drew my new pistol.

“We should all take a few practice shots,” I mumbled.
I felt Boggs’ eyes on me. I kept mine on the highway and the corpse walking our way. It was just barely visible and might have been mistaken for an animal trotting down the highway. I raised my arms, holding the pistol steady. It was heavier than the one I had gotten used to. I had already chambered a round, and now took my time sighting in the shambling target. I could tell by the way it moved that it was a slow Roamer. I liked to think of them as ‘first-run’ dead. Bodies that were already dead when they became infected, as opposed to the Roamers, who I imagined became infected while still living.

I finally squeezed the trigger, and missed.
I chambered another round, aimed just barely farther left, and smiled just slightly when the Runner fell with my next shot. As it died, for its final time, it was as if a tiny spark in my mind fizzled out. I barely noticed.

“Nice shot,” Gus said from behind me.
“Let’s climb on board, kids,” he said to both me and Boggs. “We’re in for a long day.”

Gus and Boggs sat in the front seat.
Susan and Nathan took the middle row. She had become a fair shot in short order, and had requested to be next to Nathan should this be their last moments together. It was touching, really, and very out of character for her.

I took the third row as a backup shooter.
I knew deep down that everyone was afraid I’d lose myself when we were in the thick of fighting the dead, due to my brain ‘issues,’ and would likely be useless during the fight. The younger girls and Kelsey were in the cargo space at the back of the vehicle and had been instructed to keep near the floor so that the rest of us would have a clear view in all directions. Emilie sat behind the driver’s wheel. Her focus was to drive, and to keep the vehicle moving no matter what. Our biggest fear was being swarmed. She put the SUV into drive and proceeded forward. We were all quiet in anticipation, our senses of sight and hearing heightened. The highway passed beneath us and time seemed to pass slowly, surreally.

“We’re getting closer,” I said.
“We should see them soon.”

On cue, several shuffling bodies came into sight.

“They’re all the slow ones, as far as I can tell,” I mumbled. “We should stop the car and shoot from here.”

I saw Em look at Gus for confirmation, and he nodded once.
She brought the SUV to a stop and left the engine running. We all got out, except for the three girls in the far back. We all readied our weapons. We stood in a line, side by side, and waited.

“Can’t we just stay like this and wait for them to come to us?” asked Susan.
“Just pick them off as they get here?”

“I’m afraid we’d run out of ammo, darlin’.”
Gus spit a wad of chew onto the asphalt. “We’ll have to drive through most of them.”

I hadn’t seen him take up his nasty habit of chewing since the first couple of days after the dead had risen.
I wondered where he had gotten a new supply, and then realized it was the least of my concerns. I stood between him and Boggs and felt only slightly protected.

I tried my best to ignore the irritating buzzing in my head.
As if coming out of a fog, I saw myself standing between the two men, our companions nearby. I could only see our outlines, basic colors. We were blurry at best. I knew I was seeing through dead, shriveling eyes. I decided to try to control the intrusion and focused on forcing them from my brain. I wondered which zombie was the strongest, knowing it was the one who was loaning me his or her eyes. That should be the first one to fall. I focused my energy on blocking the intrusions of sight, hunger, and desperation. I had no idea if I could, or how to go about it. I decided to focus on my own sight as a start. I searched the line of zombies that was growing closer by the second, studying how they moved, their speed. I focused on one that was at the rear. I counted seventeen total. They were traveling the highway seemingly scattered, but I was sure there was a motive for the placement of each of them.

Seeing the approaching dead and our own group at the same time was dizzying and perplexing.
As long as I focused on the one toward the back, I found it easier to sort the images. I raised my pistol and ignored watching myself do so the best I could. I felt a rudimentary sense of anger and knew somehow, deep down, that I was sighting in on the lead dead. It was a Runner trying to appear as a Roamer. I’m not sure what prompted me to focus on the rear of the pack to begin with. I sighted the pistol and held it aimed at the corpse that somehow was trying to blend in with the rest. It was tall and shambled like the others, but it held its head just a bit differently. We all stood, silent, waiting for them to come into range.

“Don’t shoot yet,” I said.
No one questioned me.

I kept my aim on that one zombie as it shambled along with the rest, getting a feel for how to match its sway.
I made sure my aim was just left of center, took a deep breath, and held it. As I finally exhaled slowly, I squeezed the trigger and my shot rang out. I watched as a bullet sped at me, at it, the faintest of a dark blur. As it hit me in the head, I gasped. The illusion of seeing from the lead’s perspective was overwhelming. With that single kill, my vision returned to only what my own two eyes could see. I could still sense the hunger from the rest of the rotting creatures before us.

“Take them out,” I urged, keeping my voice calm.

As soon as I said so, my companions joined me in firing. It wasn't the melee one might expect with bullets flying freely. The dead were far enough that we were able to aim and shoot carefully, sparing ammo. The dead fell, scattered about the highway, before ever reaching us. It was much less dramatic than I had anticipated.

“That was the entire first wave,” I said.
“We should reload and hit the road.”

“You did well, Zoe,” muttered Gus.
He briefly rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently as he passed me on his way back to the SUV.

I could feel the faint rumblings of the next horde.
I wasn't entirely sure if it was behind or before us.

“We need to move,” I said as I joined the others back inside the SUV.
“The next round is larger, and the fight will be worse. I think we should drive through.”

Gus had insisted on taking the position behind the wheel.
He had combat experience that included rough driving. He asked me to sit up front between him and Nathan so I could communicate with him easily. Boggs, Em, and Susan would take the middle row. Kelsey and the girls had moved to the back row again, wanting to be near to the rest of us. I heard Susan tell them to all buckle in. Kelsey put Jane on her lap to share her seatbelt since the third row only had two belts. I could tell they were all terrified. Jane hadn’t spoken since our rest break during the night.

Gus drove us onward.
A sporadic corpse would creep up on the side of the road. I figured they were straggling behind the first horde. They happened to be extra ripe, their skin sloughing off and bones browned from exposure to the elements. Gus would bring the SUV to a crawl while someone would roll their window down, letting the stench of death invade the cabin while they shot the creatures at close range.

“I see the sign for the I-5 entrance ahead,” said Gus.
“Zoe, we haven’t seen any of the dead fucks in a while. What’s your head telling you?”

“There’s a huge group of them not far from here.
They’re making their way toward us but they’re slow. It’s like they just became aware of us. Go north. There’s less of them to the north.”

“Alrighty,” he said back to me, looking me in the eyes briefly.
That split-second-look between us made my stomach flip-flop.