The Undead Situation (15 page)

The second route was a road called Old Owen, but it required going across the commercial part of town. Commercial was a synonym for population, which was now a synonym for zombies. So, no go on Old Owen.

Our final bet was a road close to our current location. It was called Lewis Street. There was a bridge, and then a back road called Ben Howard. It ran parallel to Highway 2, but since it was a back road, it wouldn’t be too populated. After we crossed the Lewis Street Bridge, there would be one more before we reached Sultan.

“When should we leave?”

Frank looked forlorn. “I’m tired, Cyrus. I’m an old man. Haven’t gotten a night’s sleep in months now. I’d like to stay until morning.”

“Are you two okay with that?”

Gabe and Blaze nodded. Blaze said, “It seems like a good idea, since we don’t know about those cars.”

Frank pushed up off the sofa. “I’m going to check the kitchen out, ya’ll. See if I can get us some food. Hell, I can even warm it up on the stove.”

The casualness of our situation was strange. The city was full of undead, but none of them had discovered us here yet. I wondered if that would all change through the night. The living dead had a way of finding you no matter how quiet you were, or how safe you thought you were.

I heard crunching in the kitchen, where I found Pickle chomping on old cat food on the linoleum. The little ferret seemed to be enjoying it well enough, so I didn’t stop her.

Blaze tapped my shoulder. I craned my neck around to look at her. “Yeah?”

“Let’s clean you up. Your face isn’t looking too good.”

Oh, yeah. I remembered half my face was scraped by a vicious wall at the prison. Just thinking about it made the wounds hurt.

Fatigued, I got up and followed her into the same master bedroom we just had our tiff in. She sat down at the bottom edge of the bed and shrugged her camouflage jacket off, revealing a white, sleeveless undershirt. Dog tags rested just above the low neckline. Without the bulk of the jacket she had a feminine frame, albeit a lean one.

“Rubbing alcohol should be fine for that,” she said, giving a nod toward my face. “Let’s check your shoulder, too.”

She reached into her backpack and pulled out a brown bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton cloths. She sat down next to me and the bed squeaked.

Without care for my discomfort, she loaded one of the cloths with alcohol and got to work on my face. The liquid stung and made my eyes smart. I stared at her neck as she cleaned me up, feeling uncomfortable with the proximity. Her dog tags glinted in the setting sunlight, catching my eye.

Wright, Beatrice.

“Your name is Beatrice?”

“Clearly.”

“How did you get the name Blaze?”

Mild surprise crossed her face, as though she never thought about it. “High school, I guess. I was always blazing up. Cigarettes and arson.”

“Arson.” I winced in pain as she scrubbed a particularly deep gash.

“I was unsatisfied with life.”

I chuckled. “Where were you when I was in high school? You’d have been my soul mate.”

“Is that so? Take your vest off.”

While I unzipped my tactical vest, I stole a quick look at her. She tossed the bloodied cloths on the floor and got some new ones from her pack, followed by a dark glass bottle. It looked like iodine. I hoped it wasn’t.

It was unnecessary, but I had the urge to impress the indifferent woman by my side. I pulled my stained undershirt off and turned my bad shoulder to her. She scanned my body in a single, calculated glance.

If she liked the way I looked, she wasn’t going to say so. Naturally I was a bit hurt. I wasn’t a flabby couch potato. In fact, my time alone in the apartment was so full of sit-ups and push-ups my body was, as the kids say, ‘smokin.’ I thought so, at least. Unfazed, she tugged off the old bandage and tossed it with the soiled rags. I knew what came next.

“Don’t want this to get infected.” She uncapped the iodine and saturated a clean cloth with it. “You could lose your arm. Wouldn’t want that. This already looks bad.”

She pressed the cloth to the cut on my shoulder, and I hissed in pain. Iodine, pure iodine. It hurt more than the wound. Blackness crept into the fringes of my vision.

“Man up.”

How would she like it if I aggressively applied iodine to her?

After she was done, she slapped on a new bandage from her endless supply of medical materials, then unlaced her boots. I did the same, eager to free myself from their unforgiving constraint. Plus it gave me something else to focus on, besides the brutal agony in my shoulder.

Frank showed up in the doorway, a pot in one hand. He beamed a gap-toothed grin at us.

“I made soup. Ya’ll come eat, now.”

I forced myself to get up, put a shirt on, and found that Frank had pulled bowls out and everything. He poured a heavy serving of Chef Boyardee pasta into our bowls then shoved them toward us. Eating hot canned goods was even more bizarre than living in a random house, but I wasn’t complaining. I liked Chef Boyardee, and downtime was good, too.

We ate on the sofa, since the dining room was close to a sliding glass door that didn’t have blinds. If one zombie saw us, hundreds more would follow his lead and try to break in to eat us.

The meat-stuffed ravioli in tomato sauce tasted better than anything I’d had in quite a while. It used to be a quintessential staple in my apartment before I noticed how fat I was getting from it. Eating it reminded me of better times, and a little bell of sadness rang in my heart.

Despite everything, with my clean wounds and filled belly, I felt like a million bucks. After we ate, we decided to sleep, since the stars were aligned in regard to our safety.

“You girls can sleep in the main bed. I’ll take that guest room. Cyrus’ll take the couch, all right?”

Gabe’s mouth dropped open and she snorted. “I don’t think so. I’ll take the guest room. No arguments. I’m feeling…”

She swayed slightly and brought her hand up to her head. Without another word, she stumbled into the room with the small bed, shutting it behind her.

“I’ll take the couch,” Frank said, smiling at Blaze and me.

Without a word, Blaze turned and went to the room. Was Frank trying to set us up? If so, I thought it was a noble attempt at trying to get me laid. After so many years, he was still looking after me.

I followed her in and shut the door. My toes felt remarkable in the carpet as I walked to the bed. Every fiber massaged them, making them feel renewed. I rolled my neck around, cracking it a few times, then laid down. It was blazing (pun intended) in the room, so there was no need for any covers.

As I settled into bed, I exhaled in pleasure. My face and shoulder stung pleasantly from the sanitization, and the bed felt unbelievable.

Blaze lay down next to me on her side, facing away. Her breathing was shallow. I watched from the corner of my eye as her side rose and fell.

Somewhere in the house, the air conditioner whirred to life, its automatic timing uninterrupted by the end of the world. Our good fortune almost made me sing out loud. We were lucky with the house. No runners or slows had found us, but by morning I’d bet there’d be a few. We had food, guns, ammo, two cars, and a plan. My pulse sped up as adrenaline released in my bloodstream.

Calm down
, I chided myself.
Just take it easy
.

Breathing deeper, I relaxed once again and forgot about my woes.

A burning orange sunset passed through the beige curtains, illuminating the room. I pictured the sun outside setting across the city like it always had and always would. Some things never changed.

Turning on my good shoulder, I let a tiny sigh escape me. I always was a side sleeper. Until I fell asleep, I watched the last sunlight disappear from the room. I don’t know how long I slept. It was strange falling asleep in a lit room and waking up in a black-blue one.

Blaze was on her back, the silhouette of her face washed in the glow of an adjacent alarm clock. It was odd having power on so sporadically. I wondered if the town we were headed for, Sultan, also had that going on. It might make things easier for us.

If Blaze hadn’t spoken, I would’ve thought she was asleep. Somehow she knew I was awake.

“Are you attracted to me?”

“Uh…”

Was I? Sure, kind of. Now that I thought about it, I was. My reactions to Blaze were primarily respect, a little fear, and awe. Since I rarely felt those emotions toward anyone, it made sense for the word “attracted” to explain it all.

Unexpected embarrassment filled me. Even though she probably couldn’t see my face, which was contorted in shame, I turned onto my back again. Saving people, making right choices, and now this? Attraction to a female?

Maybe I wasn’t as asexual as I thought. Either way, attraction toward her would only confuse things. Plus, it would make Gabe go even more loco. She already hated Blaze Wright with a passion. Whatever the hell was going on here would just fuel the fire.

If someone asked me six months ago if I could see myself in a love triangle, I would have said they were crazy. But was that what I was in? A love triangle? I felt something for Blaze, while she wanted to kill Gabe. Gabe needed me and I protected her, but at the same time I hated her. Geometry wasn’t my strong suit, but there was a triangle in there somewhere.

I felt something for Blaze, but was it attraction?

I shot for a cryptic air and said, “Apocalypses do this kind of thing to you.”

Bless her soul, all she said was, “They sure do.”

He’s weak
, Blaze thought as she watched Cyrus sleep.
He can’t do what has to be done
.

Someone had to do something about that girl, and it had to be Blaze. That useless, stereotypical father figure wouldn’t speak harshly about Gabe, let alone kill her, and Cyrus was no better. Behind his well developed façade was a doubtful, confused man.

But Blaze? No one could make a decision as fast or as practical as she, which was why she was going to take action.

When Cyrus’s breath grew even and deep she slid off the bed, careful not to disturb him, and carried her pack into the bathroom. After the door clicked shut she held her breath and listened, but heard nothing.

Entering a hospital was an obvious death sentence, but Blaze was glad she had. If she hadn’t gone to find Carolyn, she wouldn’t have the sedative and needle needed to get rid of Gabe.

She went through the process of filling the hypodermic needle with a sedative, going through the motions as she’d seen in the movies. Draw the liquid up, tap the needle, squirt a little out. Blaze clenched the needle in her hand and took a breath.

Killing Gabe was too easy. If she wanted to, she could walk into her room and slit her throat or suffocate her, but that wasn’t enough. Blaze hated the girl, so she wanted her to suffer.

The house was quiet, save for the old man on the living room couch. Frank was snoring loud enough to wake the dead. She snickered at her joke as she walked by him. If their location was compromised, it would be because of him.

No noise came from Gabe’s room, but a subdued white light shone from underneath the door. The girl’s stupidity knew no bounds; a light was a beacon for the undead.

She turned the knob slowly, pleased that it wasn’t locked. Inside, Gabe was lying on her back on a twin mattress. A flashlight was on the ground with a pillowcase over it. The only window was covered with heavy tacky drapes, which was why Gabe must’ve left her makeshift nightlight on. Blaze doubted it was visible from the outside, but she’d never risk such a thing.

Blaze stepped into the room and shut the door behind her, needle in hand. The door shut quietly, but once she was looming over her sleeping figure, the girl’s eyes opened.

“What are you—”

She pressed her hand over Gabe’s mouth and brought her knee onto the bed, immobilizing her arm. Gabe tried to use her free hand to push Blaze’s hand off her mouth, but Blaze easily overpowered her.

Blaze injected the sedative into her squirming arm and continued holding her down. Gabe was small and malnourished. The sedative worked faster than she expected it to, and the struggling girl’s eyelids fluttered and her body went limp.

Everything was running according to plan. No noise indicated she’d woken anyone up or drawn attention from the undead outside. To be sure, Blaze waited until she was confident before continuing her plan.

In the morning when they discovered Gabe was gone, they’d look in her room—of course—and there could be no evidence of a struggle or any of her items left behind. From her boots to her backpack and coat, Blaze stashed them in the room’s small chest of drawers. Although she didn’t think Cyrus or Frank would go as far as to search the room, she made sure to place clothes atop everything. Gabe’s pack was too large for the drawers so she shoved it under the bed and tugged the bed skirt down. Blaze hadn’t brought a gun or flashlight of her own because she planned on taking Gabe’s.

Once she was done and had the gun slung over her shoulder, the only sign of Gabe was Gabe herself, her breath shallow and her body motionless. Blaze tested her level of sedation by shaking her and was pleased with the results. She picked her up and positioned her over her shoulder, glad Gabe was small and light.