The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III (19 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT.

We had driven in silence for several hours, the night passing us by in a blur. Nova had refuted any attempts at me taking over the driving, no matter how much I had bitched at her. Really, I knew that she wanted the distraction of driving; her thoughts were clearly as dark as my own, but she kept them to herself.

“I need to pull over,” she said with a loud yawn.

“I can drive,” I offered again, but knew there was no real point in asking—she wouldn’t let me.

“No, we can just pull over and sleep for the night. We’re high up, we’ll be fine.”

“What about Joan?” I asked, giving a loud yawn myself. I downed a couple of the painkillers that Nova had given me earlier, washing them down with water from my flask.

They were marvelous little white pills that numbed not just the pain in my shoulder and stomach but helped with my flu also. Thankfully, my flu was definitely on its way out. I was still snotty, but nothing like I had been three days ago. I had to agree that it probably wasn’t the flu after all and just a crappy cold, but I wasn’t going to admit that to Nova anytime soon.

Nova pulled the truck to the side of the road and switched off the lights. “I’ll go check on her. It’s going to get cold out with the engine off. She’d be safer and warmer sitting up here with us.”

“Sure, want me to come?”

“No, stay here, no point both of us getting cold. I’ll be right back.”

“There were blankets we packed from the city?” I asked, not remembering packing anything like that. She nodded and climbed down, closing her door behind her.

I listened to the soft voices coming from the back of the truck for a minute of two and then the sound of things being moved around. I shivered, the cold already seeping into the truck now that the engine was off. I’d be glad when summer arrived and it wasn’t so damn cold all the time. Saying that, by summer I would be in warmer climates anyway. Ben’s parents’ cabin had been far south, and it was almost always warm there. That was bad news for deaders, since they tended to smell worse in the sun and the cold helped to slow them down, but it was good news that I wouldn’t have to worry about being frozen to death all the time.

Besides, I never was one for snow and rain; I was always much more of a beach girl. God, what I’d have given to be sunbathing on a beach right then instead of freezing my ass off inside a filthy truck in the middle of nowhere surrounded by deaders.

The apocalypse sucked.

My door opened, making me jump, and Joan’s face peered up at me.

“Room for a little one?” she said cheerily.

“Sure.” I grinned and moved over to allow her room.

She climbed up, carrying several blankets with her, and a moment later I heard the door on the back of the truck slam closed and Nova opened the driver’s door and climbed in, also carrying blankets.

She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Time for a slumber party, ladies!”

Despite everything, I freaking chuckled. I was tired and achy and still sniffly, it felt like there was no hope in this world anymore—but really, there hadn’t been for the past three years or so, so what was new? So I giggled.

“Are we going to be having a pillow fight?” I asked between laughs.

“Don’t you fuckin’ know it?” Nova laughed back.

I looked across at Nova and we both burst into unrestrained laughter. And damn, it felt good to laugh. I mean, it hurt my shoulder and stomach, but my heart lifted with each loud laugh that escaped my cracked lips. As if the heaviness that had been burdening me for the past week was finally letting go. I glanced back over to Joan and saw her grinning expectantly.

“Is that a yes?” she asked.

Joan snuggled into me, and her smell almost knocked me out. I choked and spluttered, coughing on bile that rose in my throat, and I cruelly and apologetically pushed her away.

“I’m sorry, we can’t snuggle. You still smell too bad.” I grimaced.

I could practically taste her stench on my tongue, and that was not a smell I wanted to taste! Why couldn’t she smell like something yummy, like peaches and cream or ice cream? No, she smelled like piss and shit, raw sewage and zombie gore. It was vile and made my stomach twist painfully with the urge to purge itself of its contents. It coated my teeth, leaving a film of month-old piss and decay across them. Joan looked hurt—offended, even—but it couldn’t be helped.

“Really, I am sorry, but no. Just no.” I shuffled away, pulling my blanket up to cover my mouth and nose. I couldn’t even try and be polite about this, and I’d like to shake hands with anyone that could.

She huffed out an annoyed breath and turned over, dragging her own blanket over herself and muttering something I didn’t care to hear. I should have felt bad, but I didn’t. It wasn’t like we could even open a window to let fresh air in. For the first time in a week I was actually grateful for the cold/flu that I had. At least it blocked out some of her smell.

I snuggled further down in my seat, wrapping the blanket tightly around me, making sure it was pulled right up around my neck and covered my ears. It was ridiculous, but I’d always had this thing about bugs crawling in my ears while I slept. Even the zombie apocalypse couldn’t shake that fear. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind howling outside the windows and let my thoughts drift to the monsters outside.

They didn’t feel the cold, or the wind. They didn’t care about snow or rain. They only cared about filling the unfillable hole in their stomach, feeding the insatiable craving they had.
What must that feel like to them?
I wondered. The anger and hatred that I saw every time in their eyes when they spotted new flesh. The hungry, painful groans they emitted because that feeling they have inside them persisted no matter what they did.

“Nina? Are you awake?” Nova whispered next to me.

I didn’t open my eyes, but I was glad for the break in the silence. “Yes,” I replied.

“I need to ask you something, it’s really important.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Silence followed and I started to wonder if she had actually fallen asleep, when she spoke again. “This is really important. I need the truth. No matter what.”

“Okay,” I replied hesitantly.

“I can take it.”

“Dude, will you just ask already?” I snapped, beginning to feel nervous.

Joan had started to snore next to me, and I’d heard her snoring before. It didn’t abate the deeper into sleep she got; it only worsened. I had hoped to fall asleep before her, but instead she was happy in the land of Nod and I was now wide awake, filled with worry and dread at what Nova was going to say next.

“Okay, I think I’m ready to ask,” she whispered, and I listened to the ruffle of her blankets as she turned to face me.

I did the same, turning my head to look directly at her. In the darkness her eyes glistened, and I could just about see the apprehension on her face, the slight tremor in her words as she spoke.

“What is it?” I asked sincerely.

“I feel silly asking.”

I groaned. “Seriously, you’re killing me. Ask already!”

“Okay, okay.” She cleared her throat and I waited anxiously, feeling like I was at the edge of the abyss ready to fall in. “Did you still want to spoon?”

It took me a second to comprehend what she was saying, and then I reached out of my covers and punched her in the arm.

“You’re such an asshole!” I said loudly, not caring if I woke Joan up.

She chuckled, fending off my hits. I sat back down with a grumble of annoyance.

“Nina?”

“Whaaaat?” I groaned, exaggerating the word and simultaneously pulling the covers back up around me to cover my ears, but even though I groaned, a smile still sat on my face. “No, dude, no spooning,” I added on, just to be clear on the subject.

She chuckled again, almost inaudibly this time. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

She said it so quietly that I barely heard it, I turned my head to look at her again, but her eyes were closed. She wasn’t asleep, but clearly she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. And I was okay with that. Whatever I said always seemed to be the wrong thing anyway, and I knew that there was no way to make her feel any better.

She had lost her older sister, and I think she was hoping that I would be her surrogate one. With her recent actions she knew now that would never be possible. I loved Nova, truly I did, and I didn’t judge her for what she had done. Like I’d said, I respected it in many ways. She did what was necessary, but I no longer trusted her, or anyone else at the base.

I was lonely. I was lonely surrounded by people, and I was lonely on my own. I had come to realize that I had merely traded one walled city for another. I was lonely behind them, and outside of them. Maybe it wasn’t other people that were broken, maybe it was me. I was the one that was constantly struggling with my actions, with others’ actions.

And if that were true, then I really was better off on my own in this world. Lonely or not.

The noise of deaders was what woke me—the hungry growls and the beating of hands on the truck. I woke with a start, shaking off nightmares of teeth and hands, nails being dragged down my back and carving my skin up like a cheese board.

I looked over and saw Joan and Nova still sleeping, and frowned in amazement that they could sleep through all the noise. The only good thing was that the truck was high up, and there was no chance of the deaders actually getting in to us. It was still damn unnerving, though. That and being trapped in this truck with Joan all night had only fermented her smell.

I rubbed the sleep away from my eyes and leaned forward, looking down into the mass of deaders with a grimace. They were gross. And by the looks of it they had been out there for a while. What were once men and women, and one child—because obviously seeing just zombie men and women isn’t enough of a freaking nightmare to wake up to in itself, so we had to include a little girl with wonky pigtails into the mix—all converged around us. They went a little wild when they saw me looking down at them. Their jaws snapped hungrily, fat rotten tongues lolling out of their putrid decaying mouths. Their clothing hadn’t fared well, and gaping holes revealed far too much sagging gray flesh hanging from decaying bodies.

I gagged and sat back, before reaching into my pocket and pulling out more pain meds. My nose was almost fully blocked thanks to the stupid cold, but I was somewhat grateful as I could practically
taste
the smell inside the truck. And it did not taste good.

I made showering my first priority when we got back to base—possibly even above getting my wounds treated properly, and maybe even above finding Jessica and letting her know that she needed to terminate her demon spawn. What was another hour of being pregnant and crushing her dreams against me being clean for the first time in over a week? Exactly. It was an undisputable argument.

Okay, so I was a bitch. But at least I’d be a clean bitch.

The sound of another vehicle in the distance had me sitting bolt upright again, and I looked out the window as another truck began moving closer to us. Several of the deaders turned, attracted by the new noise, and they began shambling toward it. I pushed Nova gently, but she didn’t move and so I pushed her again, a little harder this time. Her head slid along the window in her door, yet she still continued to snore loudly.

I leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Spiders.”

She jumped alert almost immediately, pushing me so hard that I flew backwards and tripped over Joan’s legs. Joan grumbled but continued snoring.

“Where?” Nova said, her eyes going to outside and widening when she saw the truck coming toward us. “Nina! There’s other people, why didn’t you wake me?” she yelled angrily.

I got up from my position and scowled. “I did,” I said with irritation.

“No, you yelled ‘spiders.’ Other people are way more important than spiders, darlin—you should know this by now. What the hell is wrong with you?”

I stared incredulously at her, my brain working around a hundred different insults at once, until Nova broke out in a smile.

“I’m just fuckin’ with you.” She pulled out her guns, clicked off the safeties, and sat back down, waiting for the truck to get closer.

“Who is it?” I wondered out loud. I didn’t expect her to know, but I voiced the question anyway.

Nova shrugged. “No idea, but I don’t like them already.”

“Me neither,” I mumbled. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Like?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels kind of stupid to just sit here and wait for them, though. They could be anyone.”

“They might just pass us by,” she said unhelpfully, because we both knew that was unlikely.

I ignored her comment and watched the truck get closer, dread pooling in my gut. But really, what was new? I didn’t want to be afraid. I wanted to be brave. But all I could feel was trepidation and worry.

The truck stopped, and I could make out two, possibly three people moving around inside it. They could be harmless, but my gut said otherwise, and I had learned to trust my gut in these situations.

We stared out the window in silence. The thing was, none of us were doing anything at the moment—not the people in the other truck and not us, not with all these deaders in the way. Before we could even reach each other, we would have to deal with them. I looked over at Joan, seeing that she was still sleeping soundly, and I almost laughed. Almost.

“So, what are you thinking?” Nova asked, her eyes searching my face for something when I turned to look at her. “You got a plan in that pretty little head of yours?”

I laughed then. A lot. Some of it was still the fear that was clogging my veins, and some of it was nerves, but most of it was just the simple amusement of her question.

“When do I ever have a plan?” I managed to say between breaths.

“True,” she retorted. “So?”

“So?” I repeated.

“Lock and load?” she asked.

“Lock and load,” I replied.

“Fuck yeah!” she laughed, in her true Nova style.

I dragged her bag over and unzipped it, pulling out guns and loading them, stashing knives in my pockets, and handing guns and weapons off to Nova. Not that she wasn’t previously loaded up to hell, but as she always said, a girl can never carry enough guns.

I sat up and looked over at her. “Shit, I lost my katana back there,” I said, referring to the place where I’d nearly become zombie chow.

Sometime between nearly hacking myself in half and running for my life, I must have dropped it. It was a damn shame, too, because I loved that sword. I was just getting good with it, and it reminded me of Mikey.

She smirked. “What about a good ol’-fashioned machete?”

“I could use that.”

She reached behind her chair and dragged it out. It was sharp and deadly, and looked expertly kept—if there was ever a way to expertly keep a machete, anyway. My eyes appraised it and I gratefully took it.

“Don’t lose that,” she said dryly. I couldn’t tell if she was joking because I was always losing my weapon, or if this thing was actually really important to her. Either way, I hoped to keep ahold of it for a long time to come.

We glanced back up at the other truck, finally making out three people, and all looked to be doing the same thing as us: gearing up for a fight.

“You ready for this?” I asked.

“What do you think?” she retorted, and without waiting for my reply, she opened her door and kicked out as the first deader reached in for her. It stumbled back a step and she aimed and shot it in the forehead. The gunshot sounded out loudly and then it echoed across from the other truck as they, too, made their move and began shooting their way to us.

Nova shot the next deader in the head as it trampled over its fallen brethren and then she jumped down, a gun in each hand, and she aimed at them, putting them out of their ungodly misery without a second thought. I followed her out, jumping down and landing feet first onto one of the dead deaders…re-dead deaders…completely and totally dead deaders. Whatever! It mushed under my boots and I slipped and then gagged, and maybe even vomited a little as his guts exploded around my feet. Because of course I couldn’t even be cool about getting out of the truck, I had to go and look like an idiot right off the bat.

I moved out of the way of the door, pushing it shut with my elbow to keep Joan safe, because I was hoping to make it through this mess, and I did not want to find our truck full of the undead afterwards. And yeah, the crazy old broad had grown on me.

The zombie child lunged for me, its pigtails swinging as its mouth tried to take a chunk out of my kneecap, because that was as high as the little shit could reach. I felt the tiniest amount of guilt when I kicked it away and danced circles around it until I was finally standing behind it and I squeezed my trigger. Nothing happened, and I squeezed again and again as the child deader lurched closer. I dropped the useless gun and reached for another gun. I was a terrible shot, but I didn’t think I could go wrong with such a close-up kill.

Gunshots were going off all around us, and the growls of more deaders were escaping from the tree line as they came at us, attracted by all the noise. As quick as we were putting them down, more were coming. I didn’t even have time to look up and check on Nova or the people from the other truck, but at least I knew that we were all fighting for our lives at the moment. And while we were fighting for our lives against the deaders, at least we were not trying to kill each other.

The zombie child had turned around to face me, and I got a full-on feature of what was once probably a very beautiful little blond girl, but was now anything but beautiful. She was worse than the stuff of nightmares. A vision to haunt your dreams. She opened her mouth, revealing broken, jagged milk teeth and a mouth full of horrors, and lunged for me again.

I jumped backwards, bumping into another deader that had been sneaking up behind me, and yes, I did realize that this was the second time this had happened to me in less than twenty-four hours. I ducked just before either of them grabbed me and made me their brunch, and they clashed together clumsily, not being able to stop their own forward momentum because they were stupid.
Ha! Score one for Nina
, I thought bitterly. They untangled themselves and turned toward me, their eyes wild with hunger and hatred.

“To hell with this,” I mumbled to myself, withdrawing my newly acquired machete, and I took another step backwards to allow myself some space to swing. Luckily, the shoulder that had been stitched together was not the one with my machete-slashing hand. Now that was a statement I never thought I would hear myself saying.

I slashed through the air and took the first deader’s head off, but I didn’t get to cheer in victory as black gunk splattered my body and my shoulder throbbed painfully from the swift movement. In some sick and twisted way though, I was enjoying the thrill of the kill, the thrill of ending its life and preserving my own. I used to feel bad for every kill, guilt eating away at the death I was inflicting. Because even though these monsters would gladly kill me without batting a rotten eyelash, I was a human, and I did realize what I was doing. I guess that was the difference between monsters and men. Now, though, I felt delight as I watched the head of the deader roll under the truck, and the body slump to its knees before falling forward. Maybe I’d lost my humanity after all, or maybe I’d realized that there was no way to survive this but to kill. Because it really was a kill or be killed world.

The deader girl came for me once more, trampling over the fallen deader, and I swung and sliced through her scrawny, pale neck, watching as her head fell from her shoulders. Her body fell forward, but I didn’t stop to see it come to its final rest as I was too busy jumping over the deader bodies and joining the thick of the fight again. Because this was where I felt alive—killing them, putting both them and me out of their misery. So maybe I wasn’t a monster after all.

Nova was firing with both guns, her shots almost always accurate and dead center into each of their filthy rotting foreheads. I sliced and stabbed my way toward her, helping to finish off the last of the ones within our range. My eyes looked up to see that the three men were also coming to the last of their zombies, and I knew that our time was almost up.

We had fought the dead, now it was time to fight the living. And that was something I could never take delight from.