The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III (5 page)

I finally caught up to Nova, noticing that she wasn’t even a little bit out of breath, where I was panting like I had been running for miles. She paid me no mind as her eyes stayed focused on the woman, but I heard the low chuckle in her throat.

“Fuck off,” I sniped back. “I’m just a little out of shape is all.”

“How is that even possible?” she murmured to me, her eyes staying focused down the barrel of her gun that she had aimed at the woman. “In these times, I mean. It’s not like we don’t have to run for our lives every single day, Nina.”

“Blah blah, can you just shush your damn face and focus on the matter at hand, please.”

“Someone’s a little touchy today.”

“I’m sick, okay?” I turned and glared at Nova, watching as her cheeks rose in a grin.

“What did you take from our truck, crazy pants?” Nova yelled to the old lady.

The old lady backed up until her feet found a gap in the fencing near the edge of the ledge. “I’m not crazy!” she said, actually sounding hugely offended. She burst out into her now-infamous cackle—well, infamous to us three, but whatever. I wasn’t sure if her cackling outburst meant that she was agreeing with us on the crazy front or if she was even offended anymore. This chick was screwing with my head.

“Lady, there aren’t enough cats in the world for your level of crazy!” I yelled back to her before sneezing into my hand.

Crazy Pants held up the key of the truck, dangling it in the air between us with a gleeful smile.

“Shit,” I cursed, giving Nova a sidelong glance of annoyance. “You left the key in the ignition?”

I knew she felt my death stare but she didn’t say anything about it. Instead she chose to cock her gun as a warning to the woman. I didn’t need to look at her to know that she was pointing it straight at the face of the crazy bitch.

“Give us the damn truck key,” I snarled, “or she will shoot you.”

The old lady cackled loudly again, baring her gummy mouth to me, and I couldn’t contain the grimace from my face.

“Dude, that’s just gross.” Nova elbowed me in the rib and I nodded my agreement.

There were many downsides to the end of the world—obviously the whole life-and-death and constant perilous situations were always at the top of that list—but there were other things that I had never really considered before. One of them being dental care. Sure, we brushed our teeth as best we could—hell, I even carried my toothbrush and toothpaste tube around with me wherever I went like a damn health commercial.
Boys and girls, always brush twice a day, and in the event of an apocalypse remember to pack your essentials—gun, knife, tooth brush. Safety first kids, safety first.
However, I was way overdue for my six-month checkup at the dentist.

I looked at the woman’s rotten, gummy mouth and felt a little nauseous. And a little sorry for her, truth be told. I was never a fan of the dentist, but if I would have known then what I knew now, I would never have eaten all that candy growing up. Or at least I like to believe that I would have been a touch more consistent on flossing. I had at least two fillings in my teeth, and I didn’t know what I’d do if I ever needed any more. I’d met many people in the past four years, but never a dentist.

“Please,” I said sincerely to the old lady.

She was clearly off her freaking rocker, but wouldn’t anyone be if they were there all alone? After seeing what she’d most likely seen?

“Please give us the keys. You can come with us.”

“Finders keepers, losers weepers.” She cackled again, her eyes wild.

I sighed heavily, not wanting to hurt this woman, but it was getting to the point that we had little choice in the matter. We needed that key, regardless of what the consequences were to her, and Nova was quickly losing her patience. I sneezed again, pain shooting behind my eyes as I did.

“Actually, that’s not how the saying goes,” Nova offered.

The old lady looked confused for a minute, staring into space, and then put one of her bony fingers into her mouth as if chewing on a nail while she thought about it. She eventually called bullshit on Nova, and I couldn’t blame her since that was definitely how the saying went.

“I’m serious,” Nova continued. “The saying is, ‘finders keepers, when I get my hands on you, I’m going to snap your scrawny neck!’” she growled out.

The rain was pouring down now and we were all getting completely soaked through, not to mention it was freezing. I was more than over the whole stupid conversation. My backpack was pressing into my back uncomfortably, my soaking wet clothes offering no padding against the weapons within it, so I could totally understand Nova’s aggressiveness, yet I was still a little shocked by her lack of compassion. It was normally me that was the miserable bitch, and her the fun-loving one that enjoyed dancing in the rain and long walks on the beach. Could it be that my bad attitude was rubbing off on her?

The old lady backed up another step, dangling the keys in front of her some more. “Thanks for the vehicle, ladies.” She took another step forward, until she was teetering on the edge.

The ruined city was decimated beyond repair, and I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she was crazy long before whatever went down at that place. That sort of crazy didn’t happen overnight, no matter what you lived through. It was the sort of crazy that was born from seeing too much and living through too much. That sort of crazy came with years of practice.

She glanced over her shoulder and back to us, her eyes glinting with maniacal glee.

“Where are you going to go, Crazy Pants? There’s only two ways out of here: down and to your death. Just give us the keys as you walk by,” Nova said, and even without looking I could hear the smirk to her tone. “I won’t even shoot you if you give up them up now.”

I looked from Crazy Pants to Nova and back again, cogs turning as I pieced together a story of pain and desperation, and I gasped. Despite the cold rain beating on me, despite the chill that I felt all the way to my bones and the weariness I felt with life, I gasped, because some things just aren’t right. And if my train of thought was accurate, then this was just plain wrong.

“What? That sounded like an important kinda gasp, Nina.” Nova glanced at me with a fierce scowl.

“Do you think she was one of the people that were experimented on?” I asked darkly.

“Shit,” Nova said immediately, lowering her gun, guilt washing over her features. “How long have you been here?” she asked.

Crazy pants scratched at an invisible beard on her chin while she thought. “Sixty-three years, three months, two weeks, one day, fifty-nine minutes, and six seconds, seven, eight,” she cackled back.

“Well, I’m assuming that’s her age.” Nova rolled her eyes. “But I think we can assume that she was definitely here when the experimentations were happening, but I honestly don’t remember her.” She sighed.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen.” Crazy Pants kept on counting and Nova gave out a huff of annoyance.

“Christ, how do we make her stop counting?” I said with a grumble. “And give back our damn truck keys?”

“My aunt used to have the cutest kid,” Nova said, and I frowned at her like
‘seriously? It’s story time now?
“Bear with me,” she continued. “She used to have the cutest kid. But that little shit was so naughty, and she would run everywhere just so that you would chase her.” She looked at me seriously. “The only way to make that little kid stop running was to walk away from her.”

I grumbled. “And that’s why I never wanted kids. Kids are irritating.”

“…Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…”

“Really? Never?” Nova asked in all seriousness, to which I raised a sardonic eyebrow at her. She ignored me and continued. “I always wanted lots of kids. We came from a big family. I mean, I was one of three and we were the smallest. My dad had six brothers and two sisters, and they all had kids. Anyway, it seemed the obvious way to go. But life is what life is, and Mother Nature decided—”

“To start a damn apocalypse,” I finished for her with a frown.

“No, she decided not to give me a womb that worked,” Nova replied sadly.

I stared at her in both sadness and confusion. Crazy Pants’s voice rang out behind us as she continued to count off the seconds. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that must have been for Nova, but that moment was a completely inappropriate time to bring something like that up, plus I wasn’t not emotionally capable of dealing with heavy news like that. I just wasn’t made that way. I stared at her, my mouth opening and closing as I stumbled to find the right words and not come off as callous.

Nova shrugged and lowered her gun. “Fine, keep the damn keys. We have a spare anyway.”

I looked back at Crazy Pants, seeing the light go out of her eyes, and I took that as my cue to take a step backwards. Her smile dropped just as I started to turn my back on her. Both Nova and I kept on walking until we were back at the steps, and we started to make our way down cautiously.

“We do?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “Have a spare key, I mean.”

“No,” Nova said flatly, looking sideways at me as we carefully went down the slippery steps and making me feel like a dumbass for asking. As we reached the bottom step we heard the woman yell to us.

“Don’t leave me.” She sounded so sad and broken—defeated, almost—and I felt bad for a split second. Until I sneezed again.

I turned around, seeing her dejected face looking truly every one of her sixty-three years, three months, two weeks, one day, fifty-nine minutes, and however many seconds old she was now. Her eyes were miserable and lost, her mouth wrinkled and downturned, and she came down the stairs slowly, her arm outstretched with the keys clutched tightly in her palm. Her hair was plastered to her face, like long gray cattails, but she did nothing to brush it out of the way. Close up I could see how her body trembled, and I hoped that it was from the cold and not anything age-related.

“Please, don’t leave me here,” she pleaded sadly.

The tent was toasty warm, and the strong smell of damp and mildew hung thickly in the air. But that was a much better smell than the stench of death and festering bodies that had greeted on our arrival, so I wasn’t complaining too much.

We all undressed once we double-and triple-checked the entire compound and secured the main entrance as best we could. There was no way, without lots of help, that we could get the gate back up and running, but there were plenty of trucks that we could park in front of the gate to stop any deaders from getting in. If other people stumbled upon this place, well…so be it, because there was no way to keep them out.

We had only found one stray deader trapped inside a laboratory, its arms pinned to an examination table by several knives, as if someone had turned it into their own tortured experiment. The deader growled up at me, its dull gray eyes following me as best they could. It wore a lab coat, and I couldn’t help but think of the justification and badass karma that had come to seek its own revenge on this person. I had stabbed a knife through the back of its skull, putting it out of its eventual misery without hesitation or guilt.

We hung our older rain-soaked clothes over some string that we hung from one end of the room to the other, and dressed in some old combat gear that had been left behind: green camo pants, matching jacket with a long-sleeved tan T-shirt underneath, and of course my big black boots. I looked like I should have been in the army or something, and felt completely uncomfortable wearing the uniform, like an imposter of some kind. But I was hugely grateful for clean, dry clothes—especially since my cold now had me in its death grip. I coughed and sneezed, feeling like total shit as my eyes streamed.

Nova looked right at home—happy, even—despite the current circumstances. She tucked into one of the ration packs, a meat and potato concoction of some sort. I had eaten these cold previously, and they were vile, though of course I was always happy to have food in my stomach. This time, though, the food was warm—hot, even—and it tasted like a mouthful of heaven. Seriously. Like if heaven were something you could eat, it wouldn’t be chocolate and marshmallows; it would be meat, potatoes, and thick, gloopy gravy. I slurped another mouthful in, knowing without even thinking about it that I would definitely be having another after I was done. It was the type of food I used to make whenever my husband was sick: meat and potatoes, to warm the soul and fight a cold. Okay, so soup was actually better at fighting colds, but meat and potato stew was a good second.

Crazy pants had fallen asleep right after changing into some dry clothes. She was barely coherent enough to tell us what the hell had happened. What little teeth she had left chattered so painfully that I wondered if they would smash.

Nova leaned back in her chair and lit a cigarette, slowly blowing smoke rings up toward the ceiling and humming something unfamiliar. I was tired, and felt nowhere closer to finding this Hilary woman and her husband or discovering their fate. It bothered me, the not knowing. This world was full of so many uncertainties, so many undiscovered evils that I needed to know the answer—for both my own sanity and to hopefully save Jessica.

It was hard to trust in anything or anyone when all you saw was the bad in the world. And right then all I saw was bad. I really needed a win for my team soon.

I threw my second empty packet to the side and leaned back in my own chair, closing my eyes and trying to let my body relax for five minutes. I wanted to sleep. Scratch that, I
needed
to sleep. It had been a stressful couple of days—hell, it had been a stressful couple of
years
. My thoughts felt wild, whirring around in my head and making my headache even worse.
What I wouldn’t do for some painkillers right now
, I thought miserably. There were so many things to think about, so many possibilities and outcomes for Hilary, for the people back at the base like Jessica, and Nova and me.

Nova was humming louder, and I wondered if at any moment she’d break out into song. It wouldn’t surprise me; nothing surprised me about that woman. She was entirely unpredictable, and most of the time amazingly uncomplicated—just the sort of person I needed in my life. Since what had happened with Rachael she had been different—more melancholy than was usual for her—but the further away from base we got, the more of herself I could see coming back. As if putting distance between herself and the place she’d killed Rachael was bringing her back to life. I had also noticed how much she clung to me now, seeing me as some sort of anchor for her, and I wondered if that was what Rachael had been to her…before she had to kill her, anyway.

Almost as predicted, Nova started to sing—quietly at first, eventually building into a full crescendo of out-of-tune warbling.

“Kill me now!” I yelled, covering my ears.

I heard Nova snicker but that didn’t stop her from singing. In fact, I was almost certain that she got louder.

“Are you doing that on purpose?” I scowled, opening my eyes back up.

She grinned at me knowingly, right before her expression darkened and she quit with the show tunes. “Do you really think she could be alive? Hilary?”

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to answer that question. Did I think she could be alive? No. Did I think that the unborn child growing inside her could be the cure for everything? Hell no. In fact, I’d be surprised if there was anything inside her. Because surely her body would have just rejected the fetus. Fetus? Could it really be called a fetus? Surely “abomination” was more accurate a description.

“I don’t know, Nova.” I shrugged.

“None of us do, but what do you
think
?” she pressed.

“What do
you
think?” I retorted, throwing the ball back in her court. I didn’t really want to tell her my dark thoughts. She seemed to need this, need the hope that this woman and child could possibly save the world from extinction. And didn’t we all? But I didn’t believe it.

“I think so,” she said with a soft smile that made her look younger than she was. “I think the baby is okay, and it could help cure everyone—or at least prevent it from happening to anyone else.”

Like a child still believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, she was holding onto those hopes and dreams, and for once I didn’t want to be the bitch that ruined it for her—to crush that dream with my own narcissistic yet wholly accurate reality. What would be the point in delivering the painful and brutal blow that I thought the whole trip was pointless?

Nova stared at me, waiting for my usual nasty snipe or gloating comeback, but I gave her neither. She grinned and then began to laugh, a low chuckle in the back of her throat that got louder and louder until small laughter tears formed in her eyes. I wanted to ask her what was so funny, but truthfully I knew it was because she saw me, she saw my lie in my silence. She shook her head, gave another grin to me and stubbed out her cigarette before standing up with a stretch.

“I’ll do first watch” was all she said as she backed out of the tent, leaving me staring after her, dumbfounded.

She had known my thoughts without me even voicing them, and I was left feeling like the asshole once more. I looked over at Crazy Pants, seeing that her lids were half open with her eyes rolled back. Her mouth, however, was wide open with a thin trail of saliva trailing out of the corner of it. She was snoring, a choky, phlegmy sort of snore that made me gag and look away. I closed my eyes and let my head fall backwards as I yawned, but the knowledge that she was sleeping with her eyes partially open and staring right at me was enough to keep me awake.

I looked back at her, seeing that she hadn’t moved, and once more tried to close my eyes and get some sleep. I was exhausted, my body worn down and aching from the trials of life and my stupid cold, but there was no chance of me sleeping right then. I opened my eyes again with a scowl and saw that Crazy Pants was now sitting up with a huge grin on her face, the dribble still trailing down her chin like a fat slug sliding down some lettuce. I yelped out a surprised scream and she cackled loudly, rocking back on her heels and clapping her hands.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I said loudly, jumping up.

“There’s nothing wrong with me—nothing a good strong man couldn’t put right,” she whooped gleefully. “Am I right?”

“A man?” I asked with a confused frown.

When she licked her lips, a telltale sparkle to her eyes, I grimaced.

“Oh my God, that’s so gross,” I said, feeling queasy.

Nova came back into the tent and looked across at me. “What’s gross?”

I jerked a thumb across to Crazy Pants, and Nova followed my gaze. “Heeeeey, Crazy Pants, you’re awake!” she said joyfully. “You know you have a little dribble.” She pointed to her chin, her smile still in place as if it were perfectly normal to have a dribble trail down your chin. “It’s dead out there, nothing moving,” she said to me.

Nova sat back down in her chair and poured us all another hot brown drink. I want to say it was coffee, but it was too weak to be coffee, no matter how much Nova tried to convince me that it was, so let’s just stick with “hot brown drink.”

“So, how are you feeling after some rest? Do you want something to eat?” Nova handed out the drinks, directing her questions to Crazy Pants.

“I would love something to eat, and my name’s Joan, not Crazy Pants.” She smiled fondly at Nova while I slowly took my seat again. “I was just telling this one,” she said, pointing in my direction, “that there isn’t anything better than a good, strong man to make you feel right as rain, am I right?” She cackled and took a slurp of her hot drink.

Nova snorted out a laugh. “Firstly, quit with the cackling or me and you cannot be friends anymore. Seriously, that shit is creepy. And secondly, you are completely right on the man front, though it’s hard to find one that isn’t rotting and falling apart these days.” She laughed and slapped her thigh like it was the funniest shit ever, and I rolled my eyes.

Joan laughed with her, all traces of her cackling days long gone, and even I couldn’t help but grin and shake my head in amusement. What? Laughter was infectious. Nova really did bring the best out in people, and I was glad once again that we decided to do this trip together. I say “trip,” but what I really mean is “suicide mission.”

“My husband used to be a real man, all brawn and fighting talk. Went down like a real hero too,” Joan said, slurping her drink again.

I looked away from her, not being able to bear the pained look on her face. I thought of Mikey and wondered, not for the first time, why I hadn’t just told him the truth about Rachael being a nutjob and swear him to secrecy. Was my pride really that important to me? Wasn’t he allowed to be a little distrustful of others and me after everything that had come to this world? I mean, I was one of the most distrustful people still alive, it’s only fair that he would be too. I pinched between my eyes and took a heavy breath, feeling irritated about my decision, but more irritated that I still couldn’t let go of the hurt that he didn’t trust me. I guess my pride really was still important to me. After all, what did we really have left to hold onto in this world if we didn’t have pride?

“Oh, I can bet he was,” Nova said with another sharp laugh. “Joan, when did you get here? I used to live here a while back, and I don’t remember you.”

Joan’s smile fell, her face looking haggard and aged again. “I wasn’t here long before the dead got in,” she said softly. “That was a sad day. It made me think back to when it all began, to when the dead first came.”

My interest was even more piqued at the realization that she couldn’t have been tested on if she’d only just arrived when this place fell to ruins. So she was just totally nuts then. Great.

“Do you know how they got in, Joan?” I asked carefully, not wanting to startle her with my question and send her back in on herself again.

Joan’s eyes looked up to meet mine. “The man let them in.”

My eyes searched out Nova’s, and I was glad to see that her frown matched my own.

“A man?” I asked carefully, seeing that she was barely clinging onto this moment. Her moments of lucidity seemed to be few and far between, and she was already beginning to slip away.

“Yes, the angry man.” She looked across at us, and I noticed that her hands were shaking, the hot liquid spilling over the sides of her mug and over her bony fingers. It should have been burning her hand, but she didn’t flinch, the horror of the past too alive in her mind in the moment to register anything. Her eyes were glazed and far away.

“He came while we were sleeping. It was dark, and people were running around and screaming, begging and pleading.” She finally dropped her cup, the contents spilling out by her feet. “There was so much gunfire, I couldn’t hear myself think.” Her chin trembled as she looked over at Nova, coming back to the here and now. “He said he was delivering retribution for the sacrifices of the many.”

I swallowed, my mouth feeling dry—pasty, almost—like I’d swallowed cement. “When was this?” I asked. Though the smoke that had brought us here told me when it was, I still needed to hear it, still needed to know for certain.

“Yesterday,” she said quietly as she began rocking back and forth again, her eyes falling to the ground. “The angry man came yesterday, but it’s okay, you’ll meet him soon. He said he was coming back to burn this place to the ground.” She blinked rapidly.