The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III (16 page)

“You’re snoring again!” Melanie yelled across to me, just as something hard hit my bed. I jumped, almost falling out of bed.

“For fuck’s sake, woman!” I grumbled back angrily. “Leave me alone before I shoot you.”

I had been having the best dream: Nina and I on a desert island with all the beer and burgers you could eat and drink. She had just gone into the sea, and had been in the process of slowly taking off her coconut bikini. And now I was wide awake, in this shithole. With no Nina, no beer and burgers, and no coconut bikini. Just Melanie’s shrill voice to keep me company. It was like a living, breathing nightmare, and one that every hour or so she woke me up to.

“Don’t talk to me,” she shouted back coldly, and I growled in response.

Michael continued to sleep undisturbed by our bickering, his hand still clutched tightly around his gun. It was still dark—the middle of the night, no doubt—and I was comfy for the first time in a long time. This had been the first time since Nina and I had split up that I had slept well without that woman in my bed.

Earlier, after eating, we had climbed into some of the display beds in the homeware section. They were kinda small for a dude, since they weren’t ever meant for sleeping in, but man they were comfy—springy mattresses, soft duvets, and pillows that were clean and bouncy. My head had into the feather pillow like it was a marshmallow, and I had sighed loudly. Yet as soon as I had closed my eyes, my face burrowed into the softness of my pillow, I knew she had slept there. The smell of her sweat and her hair still clung to the material like she had been there only moments before. This was where Nina had slept. The thought was both comforting and awkward.

Michael and Melanie had been right: I was pussy-whipped. The woman was fucking haunting me, yet I had drifted into a blissful sleep regardless of my guilty conscience and self-realization at how lame I was being for pining after her after all these weeks—at least until Melanie had woken me. I would have understood her being pissy about my snoring, but she was on guard duty so it’s not like I had even woken her up. I pulled the duvet back over my head and closed my eyes again, hoping for the island dream, but instead all that was there were the horrors of this world—the screaming, the murder, the blood, the death, the zombies, and the hurt on Nina’s face when I had told her it was over. You don’t latch onto people easily in this world, and you certainly don’t come to depend on them, but she had with me, and I had messed it all up.

I sat up feeling furious with Melanie and ready to finally put an end to her nasty ways. She had been sitting by the entrance of the store, using an old metal trashcan filled with papers and wood alit with orange flames to keep herself warm. I stared at her silhouette for a while, my anger dissolving the longer I watched her. She was looking into the flames like she was hoping to find some form of peace there. Shadows played across her unusually calm features, and for once I saw a woman and not the she-devil persona that she liked to put out.

I lay back down again and closed my eyes, and began thinking about what the camp needed the most. Journeys like this wouldn’t be able to continue for much longer. Not only was the fuel running out, but the assholes at the roadside were getting worse, according to Michael.

They were getting more dangerous, and would need to be taken out completely if they continued. Zee had been trying to get us to attack them for some time, to take them out, but so far we had all resisted. Who wanted to fight other humans when there were the dead to kill so frequently? But after this trip, I knew it would have to be done—no two ways about it. Another dirty job which I didn’t want to do but would no doubt be enlisted for. I was going straight to hell after this life. Of that I was certain.

*

“This place is a gold mine,” I said as we carried things over to the truck, dropping them by the back doors.

Melanie was in the back of it, stacking everything inside as orderly as possible to enable us to take back as much as we could.

“I mean, maybe we should all just move in here instead of keep carting it all the way back to the base.” I wiped my forehead with the back of my arm and grunted as I lifted another box of toiletries and medicines. Things like these were small luxuries in this world—deodorant and toothpaste, a highly sought after commodity that people fought for. Who would have ever believed that toothpaste would be more sought after than even the rarest of diamonds?

“Stay here?” Michael asked with a grunt as we passed by each other. His box was filled with clothes—mainly socks and underwear, pants and sweatshirts. The apocalypse had hit in the height of summer when shorts and T-shirts were the quickest-selling item. But they were not of much use to us now. However, socks and underwear were always a necessity.

I had known a man who’d killed someone else for a new pair of boxers. I shit you not. It was a gruesome and bloody murder, too. A man tearing apart another man over goddamned underwear, who the hell would have ever believed such a thing?

I had actually thought many times about driving to the coast and finding a shipping yard—one with all of those containers that came from oversees. They would be filled with so much useful shit—food and medicine and clothing. So far it had yet to be anything but a pipe dream, though. Just like my island dream.

I lifted up another box, its heaviness telling me it was either food or weapons. I trudged back over to the truck, dropping the box heavily just inside the doors of the truck so Melanie could slide it where she wanted to and not have to pick it up. She arched an eyebrow at me.

“It’s heavy.” I shrugged in response to her hostility.

“I’m not a princess,” she retorted, and bent over and picked it up, grunting immediately.

She looked taken aback by the weight but tried not to show it, and I stayed where I was, watching her stagger to the back of the truck with difficulty. I should have walked away, been a gentlemen and not embarrassed her further. I should have, but I didn’t, because I was an asshole and she was a bitch.

Michael sidled up beside me, dropping another heavy box where mine had just been. “Shit, that one’s heavy,” he breathed out. “We can’t stay here. Besides, the base is just fine. It has everything we need,” he grumbled and stormed away.

I followed after him. “I know you love that place, but we’re having to travel further and further for supplies. How long do you think we can keep that up?”

It was a genuine question, one I had been wondering myself for a while now. I shrugged out of my jacket and threw it to the side. It might have been be freezing out, but I was boiling. All the moving of this crap had me sweating my ass off.

Michael dropped his current box to the ground and turned to me looking pissed off. “We’ll sort something out,” he snapped, taking his own jacket off.

“Like what?” I replied, rolling up my sleeves.

He looked exasperated. “I don’t fucking know, Mikey. But we can’t leave that place. People have made it their home. We can’t just take that away from them.”

“So they’ll have to make a new home,” I snapped back. His reluctance to see the bigger picture was beginning to piss me off. Something had to change, and maybe this wasn’t the best solution, but we couldn’t keep on much longer like we were.

“Most of those people wouldn’t last the journey. And if we came up against trouble…” He shook his head, and I wasn’t sure what stunned me more—his humanity or the fact that he seemed worried about coming in to trouble. “They’re not fighters. They’re old people and kids mostly. Do you really think they would have the stomach for some of the things we have to go up against? The things we have to do?” He ran his hands through his hair, looking even more frustrated. “Besides, the only thing really keeping those people mentally alive is the fact that they have a home. They wouldn’t live a life on the road. They need walls and a roof, carpets and furniture. They need the normalcy of a life that once was.”

I understood what he was saying: desperate people do desperate things. I’d seen more than my fair share of their desperation. There were risks, of course, but there were also advantages. In my eyes, the risks outweighed the advantages. The base had been a great place so far, but if the weather kept going much longer the way it was, we would all be screwed. Next year we would be more prepared—we could grow food and store for the winter—but right then, the people were freezing and starving to death. And the defenses of that place weren’t that good anymore. We didn’t have the manpower to cover it all. It was an illusion of safety, and one they had all grown comfortable with. Sure, most of the zombies had been kept away thanks to the booby traps surrounding the place, but if the Forgotten or someone equally organized found it, we would all be dead.

“I just worry,” I began, but Michael cut me off.

“Well, don’t. We’ve been holding this shit together since long before you showed up. If you want to leave, just leave. Don’t use us as your get-out. Fucking own it if you want to leave.” He stooped down, picked up another box of supplies, and stalked off.

I stared after him, half agreeing and understanding what he was saying, and half considering his suggestion of leaving. I looked up at the tall walls of the mall, and the fence protecting the access entrance. The place was secure, and there was plenty of stuff here. I knew our group wouldn’t be making many trips back, so there would be more than enough to last me for a long time. Besides, I hated staying in one place for too long. There were too many risks associated with that. Maybe it was time to move on. A chill moved down my arms, the hairs standing to attention. I was getting cold now, since I had stopped working, and I reached over and pulled my hoody back on.

Michael stomped up beside me and I looked across at him. He was frowning more than usual, his mouth pulled into a hard, tight line. He bent down to retrieve another box, and when he stood back up he continued to stare at me for a moment as if he could read my mind. I started to speak, but he shook his head to silence me.

“This group needs you, Mikey,” he said simply, and walked away.

We were back on the road again, the journey to the base seeming a long and futile one. The rain lashed down on the windows, making the roads muddy and the truck skid from side to side every now and then on rotten, sodden leaves. We drove slow, keeping the speed down, meaning we got to take more of the scenery in than we usually would.

Normally it was just a blur of trees and road, with broken vehicles and dead bodies littered across the blacktop. I avoided looking too closely; it was the same shit I had seen for the past couple of years, and I had no time for reliving that. But driving slowly, you got a true sense of not just the destruction, but the beauty hidden beneath. Below the devastation, nature was trying to flourish. It was a beautiful, heartbreaking thing, that even with all the death in this world, something was thriving.
Something
was thriving. I hated that it gave me hope for the future.

Would mankind ever rule this earth again? I doubted it. There would always be death, and I don’t mean your grandpa dying at the ripe old age of seventy-eight. I mean, there would always be a zombie somewhere. There would always be one hiding somewhere, and people would always die, their bodies reanimating into a walking nightmare. I had heard enough about fake cures, and had given up on all that shit a long time ago. As long as people walked the earth, so would zombies. But to see nature still growing, still surviving, that definitely made me reconsider if there was hope for any of us. Because if Mother Nature could thrive after everything that had happened, then maybe we could to.

“You ready?” Michael asked, his voice thick with irritation.

“Always,” I replied, winding my window down and holding my gun out of it ready to shoot any crazies that jumped out at us.

We were at the worst part of the journey: “the road of the damned,” as Michael had named it. Anything could and likely would happen there, apparently, and Michael and Melanie had filled me in on enough horror stories of some of the shit these people had pulled to last me a lifetime. Apparently they would do anything to get a passing vehicle to stop, including throwing women and children into the road and to their deaths, or like what happened on our way to the mall—barraging us with rocks from above. The windshield had a large crack in it just to prove it. That was just another reason I didn’t want to continue making the journey anymore: those people were crazy, and so far, their level of crazy hadn’t paid off, but sooner or later it would. Sooner or later they would get lucky, and us not so much. Or sooner or later we would have to do something about them. Neither option rested easily on me.

Michael stepped on the gas, making the truck lurch forward and simultaneously slide to the side. Melanie muttered a curse under her breath but kept her eyes trained ahead. The air smelled damp and earthy, but underneath all that I could smell something else.

I stared into the tree line, seeing nothing moving and I frowned. Something wasn’t right; it was too quiet, too still. There should have been something happening by then, but instead there was just silence.

“Michael?” I began.

“Thinking the same thing, man. Something’s up,” he called back.

I was relieved to know that it wasn’t just me getting a bad vibe, and as the truck went around a sharp bend I spared myself a second to look away from my side of the truck and out of the windshield, toward the road. I sucked in a sharp breath. Now I knew something was really up.

“I don’t think this is another trick,” Melanie said, her words almost getting lost in the sound of the noisy truck engine, the rain, and the heavy beating of my heart. “I think this is for real.”

I looked back out of my window, feeling the truck slowing down but thankfully not stopping. Bodies littered the road, the devastation something that I wouldn’t be able to erase any time soon. Corpses literally torn in half. People, now reanimated, hanging from trees, their clothing the only thing stopping them falling as they reached hungrily for us. Water ran two inches deep on either side of the road, an outcome of the heavy downpour we were having. But it wasn’t colored in mud and dirt; it didn’t look like rainwater. It was red—small rivers of blood running parallel to each other.

I swallowed hard as a gust of wind caught the scent of death in its grips and fanned it toward me, the smell hitting me with force. I gagged, but felt better when a second later I heard both Melanie and Michael do the same.

“What the hell happened here?” Melanie asked, her usual acid-laced words missing, replaced by sad curiosity.

I shook my head, not knowing how to answer. This was a nightmare come true. Men, women, children—all of them were dead, their bodies torn apart, their blood flowing like a river.

“A horde,” Michael offered, and I nodded, still feeling too numb to talk. “A big fucking horde took them out.”

I had seen death, experienced death, I had even delivered a lot of death. But there was something about seeing this sort of destruction of a group that tore you up inside. These people deserved to die, no doubt—at least most of them did—but not like this. No one deserved to die like this. Certainly not children. I wouldn’t even wish this on the Forgotten. My thoughts drifted to Nina and the scar across her cheek, the way she still flinched when I held her, and I knew that last part was a lie. I did wish this on the Forgotten. On Fallon.

I swallowed, gaining some composure. “If it was a horde, it had to be a huge one,” I turned to look at my companions, “to take out this group.”

They both nodded. I realized that Michael had stopped the truck. It idled in the road, the engine, the rain, and the faint groans of the dead the only noises to be heard. There were zombie bodies scattered around, and I was glad that this group had put up a fight, but something else was bothering me, something I couldn’t quite figure out enough to put into words.

“At least we don’t have to worry about being attacked by them anymore,” Melanie said darkly, and I found myself nodding in agreement.

She was right: this eliminated most of my argument for moving us to the mall. If this road was now clear then it made the journey a helluva lot less dangerous. Michael started the truck again, and I put up my window. It didn’t block out the images outside, but it at least stopped the rotten death smell that hung in the air. We started to drive again, leaving behind the death, when the rain suddenly stopped as quickly as it had started—as if God himself had turned off a tap—and I was at least thankful that something seemed to be going right. I wondered if it was an omen, a sign that things were about to turn for the better. Because it was about damn time.

No road of the damned to worry about. The rain had stopped. And I had come to the decision that I would—no, I
needed
to—speak to Nina, to at least explain and apologize. In the midst of all this death and destruction, it had solidified my resolve on the matter. She deserved better than me, but damn it, I loved her crazy ass, and I was not willing to let her go—not without a fight. Everything I had just seen had proved it to me. Life was too short—way too damn short. Every day was a danger, a risk we took when we stepped outside whatever walls or gates were supposedly protecting us. If I could risk my life every day to get food for people I hardly knew, then the least I could do for myself was risk getting my heart trampled on by telling Nina how much she meant to me.

It was ridiculous, really. In the middle of an apocalypse, surrounded by danger and death at every turn, and all I could think about was the crazy woman that haunted my dreams. The way she smiled when she thought I wasn’t looking, the protective look she had when she was near Emily, and the soft feel of her skin against mine. What had started out as sex had grown into something much more. I had never believed in true love—that sort of crap was for books and movies, and I didn’t have time for that shit in my life; but I’ll be damned if I didn’t love Nina with every part of me. She owned me. She completed me. She made me want to be more than I ever thought capable. Instead of running from my past, I wanted to turn and face it, to tell my past that I did have a future, and I damn well deserved to have one, because I was more than what everyone believed me to be.

I was a good man.

My heart sped up, a small quirk at the side of my mouth as I thought about her. She was going to give me so much shit, but it would be worth it if she would take me back. I had been an asshole, and she had been no saint, but for the first time in my life I loved someone, and I wanted to fight for them and for that love.

As soon as we got back to the base I would find her, and I would tell her, and she would likely kick my ass, but it would be worth it. And if she wouldn’t listen to me, I would damn well make her.

“What are you grinning about?”

I looked across at Melanie, still grinning, still thinking about Nina, where she was and how embarrassed she would be when I declared how I felt about her in front of everyone. She would go red in the face. The sexy blush she got when she realized someone gave a shit about her had always been one of my favorite things. My smile froze and then slowly fell as the thought that had been niggling away at me finally revealed itself.

“I think he just realized that he loves his woman,” Michael said with a dry laugh.

“Took him long enough,” Melanie replied. “Did you hear me, asshole? It took you long enough.”

I stared into Melanie’s eyes, my words not coming out of my mouth.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop staring at me, you pervert.”

I looked across at Michael. “The base,” I finally said, horror lacing my words.

Michael met my gaze, a deep frown cutting between his eyes. “What of it?” All humor was lost now as I watched the same dread-laced realization crawl across his own face.

“The horde,” I gasped. “We haven’t passed the horde.”

“Shit!” he yelled out angrily and stepped on the gas.

The truck shot forward and I listened as things fell over in the back, but it didn’t matter—nothing mattered at that moment except getting back to the base.

“What? What’s wrong?” Melanie at least had the consideration to sound worried.

“The horde that took out the road of the damned—it’s heading toward the base,” I said, my eyes meeting hers.

Her eyes widened, her mouth tightening into a thin line. “Get us back there, Michael. They need us.”