The Undead Situation (13 page)

Though Gabe couldn’t see it, Blaze’s upper lip twitched, making the scar across her face look uglier than normal. Her feelings were transparent at that moment.

I answered for her. “They were losing it. Even if we covered them, that Steven guy had already lost it. I don’t know if you noticed, but he tried to shoot me.”

Silence from the backseat, then, “The other three…”

Blaze jerked her head to the side, glared hard at Gabe. I looked back to the road, leaving it to them to work the fight out.

“You or a stranger?” Wright asked.

“What?”

“You don’t seem to value your life. Would you die for a group of strangers who were at their end?”

“They weren’t—”

“It doesn’t matter. Right now, and for the rest of our lives, it’s always going to be you or them. If you stayed, you would’ve died trying to protect them.”

“You two would’ve—”

“No, we would not have stayed. Cyrus and Frank don’t care about them and neither do I. Which brings us to the original question: you or a stranger?”

Gabe breathed deeply in anger. I glanced in the mirror and saw her clenching her jaw so hard I could swear I heard it. Frank looked tired.

“Well, aren’t you two fucking perfect for each other,” she said, telling us off in any way she could, like a teenager scorned by her mother.

Battle won, Blaze faced forward, an uncharacteristically pleased look on her face.

We drove a short distance down the main drag before returning to the gas station. There were no sign of the living. Quite a few stiffs roamed around, but none were close to Blaze’s Mustang. Before she left, I gave her the shortwave radio I’d given Gabe the day before, so we could communicate without leaving the cars. Gabe, unaware of Blaze’s disgust for her, got into the Mustang, too.

The right side of my face was sticky and itchy with blood. I needed to find time to check my shoulder wound to make sure it wasn’t already infected. My feet were killing me. How I wanted to take my boots off. I hadn’t done so since Gabe and I left the apartment in Seattle. A tiny, infuriating itch terrorized the arch of my foot.

Undead hands reached out from open car windows as we drove. Some of them close enough I heard their bloody fingertips scratching against the side of the vehicle. The driver’s side window was broken, forcing me to make wide turns away from anything on my side.

We passed the prison and were in new territory.

I stopped the vehicle in front of a junior high. Its gates were closed, but hundreds of undead adolescents pressed up against the chain link fence, trying to claw their way out. For a moment, I marveled in the melancholy of it all. Maybe one undead got in and bit someone while they were trying to shut the school down. That’s all it took: one bite.

Bumping caught my attention. I leaned out the window and looked down. A drooling, white-eyed toddler banged against my door. There was a substantial chunk of neck missing and a cascade of old, coagulated blood down his chest. I looked away. While I was zoning out, staring at the mass of dead kids, my radio hissed.

“Cyrus. Why did you stop? Over.”

I grabbed it and clicked the transmit button. “I’m fine, Blaze. Just assessing. Over.”

“What’s the plan? Over.”

“Keep heading east for Highway 2. It’s at the end of town. Over.”

We only made it another ten minutes before disaster struck again.

The wreckage lessened, and our cars navigated around the remaining junk with ease. After the junior high there were some houses and a terrifying nursing home, but nothing too traumatizing. Houses were destroyed or unscathed, and occasional rotting figures lay on the ground. Our windows were shut, but I knew well what the festering scents were like.

I noticed a sign proclaiming Main Street, which meant we were right on track. Right on track was a temporary term. Just as we got up to an intersection, the Mustang veered off to the right onto a residential street, then halted with a piercing screech. I followed, Frank and I staring at the red car, waiting for something to happen.

Frank picked up the radio and called them. No reply.

Gabe practically fell from the passenger’s side, and only a quick grab of the car door saved her from a face plant. In a more dignified manner, Blaze threw open the other side and strode with a purpose around the vehicle. Her fists were clenched and her mouth was set in a grim line. I knew what was coming.

Blaze’s first punch landed right into Gabe’s ribcage. She stumbled back, doubling over, before using her low stance to ram Blaze up against the car. I watched as Blaze’s head hit the window, temporarily stunning her. Gabe rammed a fist into Blaze’s stomach, but that was the last shot she got in.

Fights were short in reality, and Blaze made sure of this. With a good show of brute strength, she shoved off Gabe. She let the momentum of the move carry her into a kick a black belt would appreciate. Her foot hit Gabe in the center of her chest and effectively knocked her onto the ground.

As Gabe tried to get up, Blaze lost some of her cool and threw a sloppy kick into her side. It did damage, but wasn’t as precise as her previous kick. My mouth dropped open when Blaze continued to kick Gabe.

“Boy, you’d better do something about that,” Frank said.

Why me? Why was I the one who had to mediate everything? Why was I the one who had to deal with everyone’s psychotic breakdowns?

None too happy, I roughly shoved the car door open and ran over to Blaze. I came up behind her and threw my arms around her waist, hauling the wild woman off Gabe. She tried to bolt out of my grasp but, ignoring my protesting shoulders, I squeezed tighter until I knew it hurt.

“Let me go,” Blaze said, her calm voice contradicting her struggle to get free.

“No.” I walked backwards, creating distance between her and her prey.

Frank passed me and went to Gabe, giving the battered girl a hand up. Blood poured from her nose and mouth, while she clutched her midsection. Frank guided her to the Hummer and helped her in before taking the wheel himself.

After coercing Blaze into the Mustang and finding ourselves sitting in silence, I let a shaky laugh escape.

“You really got her.”

Blaze got out of the fight without a busted lip or nose. Of course, I’d imagine the back of her head was throbbing and her stomach was tight, but beyond that, she was the evident victor. I remembered my fight in the apartment with Gabe, and how she fared a little better with me. A disturbing thought crossed my mind: Blaze could probably beat me silly.

“Couldn’t finish the job fast enough,” she said in that monotone voice. My gaze caught hers. “Let’s find somewhere to sleep. Then we’ll have that talk.”

I did promise Blaze we’d discuss the Gabe issue. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how biased I’d become toward Blaze, who I knew drastically less about her than Gabe. That didn’t matter, though. Blaze proved more useful and lucid than Gabe.

Shutting away the conflicting thoughts, I started to answer but stopped. I didn’t know what we were going to do about Gabe. Nothing really needed to be done. Just because they didn’t get along, and because I didn’t like her, didn’t mean we could just kill her. I knew Blaze felt quite differently, but I wasn’t ready to be the partner of a murderous psychopath just yet.

“I’m responsible for her,” I said, adding, “I guess,” to make it seem more casual.

Blaze looked skeptical. “Responsible.” She shook her head. “I thought you were better than that.”

I shrugged, about to spit out a very good comeback, when another explosion rumbled down the road. This time it was way too close for comfort. I snatched up the radio and called Frank.

“You there?” I noticed Blaze muttered “over” when I didn’t.

“‘Course I am, boy.”

“That sounded close…”

“Yee-ah, it did. I reckon it might be some crazies, you know? I think we should hide ourselves and wait for a while.”

“I agree. No zombies around this area. Let’s take advantage of that. You lead the way. Find a house that looks safe.”

The Hummer shuddered to life, and I followed it down the road it veered onto. A few minutes later, Frank pulled into the driveway of a rambler. The garage was open, and there was no fence guarding the backyard. He drove the Hummer around the side of the house, parking it next to a stagnant swimming pool.

I did the same. We all stayed still in our cars, listening.

From across town, a loud engine approached. Many engines, I realized, as the sound grew closer. Soon they passed by us, but all the motors shut off instead of fading away. Whoever the group was, they were stopping for the day. It was hard to say what the explosions were, but they could’ve been intentional. Humans were difficult adversaries, and I wasn’t interested in fighting a horde of them.

As quietly as I could, I got out of the Hummer, grabbing my pack before shutting the door. Blaze, Frank, and Gabe did the same. Moving as one, we went to the front of the house and slid in through the garage. The door was shut but unlocked.

Frank took initiative and lowered the garage door, which wasn’t automatic. The sound was louder than I preferred, but the shut door offered more protection.

Blaze brought her rifle up and took point, searching the house. I waited with the other two at the garage entrance. A couple bloody prints adorned walls and floors and around the door, but everything else was normal.

She came back with her gun pointing down, an indicator the house was clear. Just as she was about to open her mouth, the lights flickered on. That sector of the city was being powered for a few hours, and I was excited. Electricity was convenient, though at the moment I couldn’t think of anything to do with it.

An angry Gabe pushed passed us and into the living space, shooting Blaze daggers as she went.

The house was an older single story home with dark brown carpet and brown paneled wood walls. There was a master bedroom with an attached bathroom, a guest bedroom, and a bigger living space that was all adjoined. Overall, the house was in flawless condition, as though the original owners just left for a quick trip.

“Blaze, we need to talk,” I said, as Frank and Gabe fell onto the living room sofa.

She turned to face me, an expectant expression on her face. Regardless of her emotions, if she really had any, she followed me into the master bedroom. I shut the door behind us. My newfound sense of guilt made me feel like I hadn’t discussed the fight between her and Gabe thoroughly enough.

“What happened with Gabe? You could’ve gotten us killed.”

Her brows came together and she scowled at me, but stayed silent. I shrugged my pack off and took Pickle out so she could get some air and exercise. When I sat on the bed, Blaze leaned against the wall in front of me.

“She got on my nerves. I had to put her in her place. Why are we talking about this again?”

Like I hadn’t heard that before, and I told her so. “When I met Gabe, I beat the hell out of her, but it only changed her attitude for a couple days. She gets on my nerves every second of her existence, but—”

“We finished this talk in the car, Dad. But since you want to do it again, here, you compromise when you shouldn’t, Sinclair. That girl contributes nothing—”

“She can shoot. She isn’t as bad as you think.”

“Oh, really? How many times have you seen her shoot a gun? She’s tagging along because she’d die otherwise. She can’t go solo.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true. She was on her own before she came to me.”

Blaze shook her head. Her almost-black eyes pierced right through me, and I shifted uncomfortably. “No, she was not. Back at the prison, I heard her talking to the warden’s daughter. The building she was staying in wasn’t secure. Zs got in and killed some of the group she was staying with. When she came running down your street, she was trying to escape whatever clusterfuck she left behind. She was trying to find someone else. Probably someone stronger and better suited to take care of a teenage girl.

“Fuck, Sinclair. None of those guns or gear were even hers. She got caught up in a gang and they used her for sex. Those guys you ran into? They were sent by her pimp leader to scoop her back up for currency in their safe house. Every shot, every punch—it was all out of luck.”

Why did Gabe make it all up? To make herself look tough? It wouldn’t surprise me. Really, it made sense for her to make up an entirely new identity in this chaotic world. She wanted to come off as relentless and strong. If anything, I had to give her credit for the elaborate ruse she managed to pull on me. I felt duped, which I certainly wasn’t used to.

“Ah,” was all I could manage.

Blaze pushed herself off the wall and sat down next to me. “She lied to you. What are you going to do about it?”

I turned to face her and glared. “Why am I the unofficial leader of our fucked up parade?”

She shrugged. “Maybe when you decided to unofficially make choices for Frank and Gabe. When you unofficially saved their lives. You’re a hero. It’s disgusting.”

“What about you? I haven’t done anything for you, but you’re here.”