This Would Be Paradise (Book 2) (26 page)

Darren grabbed my arm and dragged me off to the side, out of Colin’s earshot. I looked back to see Colin starring at his feet, rocking back and forth on his soles.

“You trying to bring back a stray?” Darren whispered.

Looked like I’d picked up one of Ethan’s bad habits—or good habits, depending on who you asked.

“You know, I thought that about you once,” I said. “Back when we met on the bus.”

Darren let out a harsh breath.

“I can tell you don’t like him, but he’s just a teen. We can’t leave him here to fend for himself,” I said, stomping my foot.

“What if he’s lying about not having a group and some crazies come after us looking for him?” Darren said.

“There’re crazies inside Hargrove, so they’ve got to get past them first. Do you think it’s even
safe
to bring him back there?”

I wasn’t sure whether it was proper to disclose the murders to Colin. It seemed like something you’d want to know before stepping inside. But I also didn’t want him to say no, because then we’d have to leave him out here by himself.

“Honestly, I don’t care about his safety. It’s our group I care about,” Darren said gruffly.

“Awe, Darren,” I cooed.

He glowered at me, then turned to Colin. “Yes, we have a group. You can come back with us, but be warned, Hargrove’s not some oasis in the desert.”

“They should make pamphlets that say that.” I waved my hand in a wide arc. “
Not great, but it’ll do.
”

“You guys really went hard on that pot, eh?” Colin smirked. “I still didn’t agree to anything.”

With a shrug, Darren returned to his lounger chair.

“How have you been surviving out here this long by yourself?” I asked.

“I’m fucking awesome?” Colin answered, but it sounded more like a question.

“Yeah, I don’t buy what you’re selling,” I said.

“Mind if we sit? I’m feeling a little tired from all that running.” Colin pointed to the loungers we’d been sitting on.

I motioned for him to go over. Colin took off his backpack and plunked down on the ratty chair cushion, giving him one buffer lounger between him and Darren.

He took a deep breath. “I’ve been keeping a low profile. Not staying in one place too long. The key is to always be on the move.”

“What about food?”

“Been scavenging grocery stores and convenience stores mostly.”

“And you’ve been by yourself the whole time? What about your parents?”

“I was here for”—Colin paused ever so briefly—“boarding school, so my parents weren’t with me when everything went down. I have no idea what happened to them.”

I sat down on the chair between Darren and Colin. “Me too. Well, not the school part. I was only here for Mardi Gras. I’m actually Canadian.”

“But you don’t have the goofy accent.”

“You’re thinking of the Newfie accent. We’d don’t all talk like that.”

“Say aboot,” Colin teased.

I laughed again. “I probably shouldn’t be laughing; I should be offended.”

“Didn’t your
Canadian
school ever tell you drugs are bad?” Colin grinned.

“You haven’t had the week I’ve had, kid,” I grumbled, my laughter stopping.

“I know pot messes with your brain cells and all, but it’s
Colin
, remember?”

I scowled at him. “Don’t make me regret my offer.”

“Anyway, I’m not that bad off,” Colin said, almost offended. “I met this guy at the hos—
school.
He had his full leg in a cast when the infection first broke out.”

“That’s pretty shitty,” I said. It was frightening to imagine hobbling away from a bunch of infected with your leg wrapped in a cast. The guy probably hadn’t lasted very long.

“You never gave us an answer,” Darren butted in.

“I’ll think about it,” Colin said, his nose in the air.

We decided to camp out on the sun deck since it was getting dark, hoping the majority of the infected would have wandered off by morning. Colin told us about Krissy, the red Mustang he was essentially living out of. It was official. Even a fifteen-year-old kid had a better car than me. He said it was parked in a lot a few blocks away from the university. When I asked him what he was doing at the campus, he simply said, “I just wanted a chance to see what university was like. A lot less parties than I thought.”

I liked the teen, but Darren treated him like a leper for the rest of the night. He refused to give Colin his weapons back, even though the teen hadn’t made an aggressive move the entire time he was up here with us. Like most teens, he talked a big game.

The pot vacated my system, leaving behind a bone-deep tiredness. I looked over at Darren, who appeared wide-awake. How he managed that, I had no idea. His eyes narrowed and flashed to Colin, who was dozing off, then looked at me. We locked eyes and he nodded. I assumed that meant, “Go to sleep, I got this.”
I fought my fatigue for a while longer, but eventually my heavy eyelids won as I lay on the lounger in between Darren and the new guy.

I woke up to Darren shaking me.

“Dear God, I thought you were in a coma,” Darren said.

My eyes opened to a blurry shade of electric blue in front of me. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. My head spun and limbs creaked, my elbow reminding me that I fell yesterday.

“How long was I asleep?” I croaked.

“I didn’t time it, but close to ten hours,” Darren said. “I woke up first and figured I’d let you wake yourself up, but we gotta go.”

“You’re just as bad as me,” an unfamiliar voice said.

I looked at the teen from yesterday. I’d almost forgotten about him. I was disappointed in myself for lowering my guard so spectacularly, but I blamed the pot. Colin could’ve robbed us and taken off, but then he’d have to face the mob of infected solo. Plus, before I fell comatose, Darren had been on watch duty. At least I hadn’t lived—or not lived—to regret my choice. I guess my people-reading skills were back online.

A burning odor reached my nose. “What’s that smell?”

“Shit!” Darren jumped up. “The noodles.”

He ran over to some sort of metal and tin contraption that was smoking.

“Some boy scout you got there,” Colin scoffed.

I walked over to Darren. “What are you doing? Trying to burn the dorm down with us in it?”

Darren shoved a cast iron pot in my face. In addition to the burning scent, I could also smell the familiar aroma of instant noodles. I looked down, and indeed there was a soupy brown mix of noodles in the pot. On the ground was a small, portable grill.

“This is a military-grade camping stove. It burns whatever you can find for heat to cook with, so you don’t need to carry fuel around. And, it folds easily and it’s fairly light,” Darren explained.

I was rather impressed with how prepared Darren was, first with the zip ties and first aid kit and now this. I really had undervalued his expertise.

“You pack bowls too?” I asked.

“I found some disposable bowls and cutlery when we raided the cafeteria.” Darren passed me a set, then reluctantly handed one to Colin.

We dug in, practically inhaling the hot noodles. When we were done, Darren packed up his supplies and made sure we all drank a bottle of water before we decided what to do. The infected had dispersed overnight, but way too many were still wandering all over the campus and streets to make our getaway easy.

“It’s decision time, kid. You coming with us or not?” Darren said.

“Depends. Is this Hargrove place you told me about full of grumpy old men like you?”

Darren clenched his jaw. “Suit yourself.”

He walked away to canvass the perimeter for an escape route.

“You know, you really should be nicer to people who are trying to help you,” I said in a very adult-like manner. Oh God, I sounded like an old person. Soon, I’d be yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

“Sure,” Colin said in an insolent manner. “We need to get my car first.”

“That might be hard with the city crawling with infected.”

“That’s my stipulation. I need my car first, then I’ll come with you,” Colin repeated.

“Please, don’t do us any favors,” Darren muttered, then launched into planning mode. “Our best bet is to go back out the front doors, since the truck is closest to that exit. If we took the fire escape, we’d have to wade through the crowd.”

I started packing up my stuff.

“Here, make yourself useful.” Darren tossed a couple of the full plastic bags at Colin. “Your gun and sheathed knife are in one of those.”

“I’m not a butler,” Colin said as he picked up the bags and rummaged for his confiscated weapons.

“We’ll need some sort of distraction,” I said. “They’ll be swarming the truck as well.”

“Like what?” said the guy who’d smashed in the cafeteria door, allowing the infected
inside
so we could get away.

I reached into one of the bags Colin was holding and pulled out one of the air horns I’d found while looking through the dorm rooms.

“I figured these would come in handy. Got two in total.”

“Not bad,” Darren said.

“I got some flares in my backpack,” Colin added.

“We can throw the air horns and flares off the side of the building to draw them away from the truck,” I said.

“It’ll draw in more infected,” Darren said, pointing out the flaw in my plan.

“Yeah, but I’m hoping we’ll be gone by then and the horns will eventually run out,” I countered.

“All right, be ready to hoof it down the stairs right after we do this,” Darren said.

He dug through his backpack and pulled out more zip ties. “We’ll need these to hold down the air horn triggers.”

Always prepared.

“Get those flares ready,” Darren told Colin.

Colin gritted his teeth but did as he was told. We stood at the north-east corner of the deck, where we’d originally spotted Colin on the boulevard. Darren struck two flares and threw them as hard as he could. They landed in the street a good couple meters away. The nearby infected honed in on the extremely bright light within seconds.

“Get ready,” Darren said as he tightened a zip tie around the trigger of the first air horn.

The shrill sound echoed from the roof and Darren tossed it next to the flares. He threw the other one down, and soon we were sprinting back inside the dorm and down the stairwell, not wasting time to see if the infected had fallen for it. We hit the main floor and ran for the front doors. Darren raised my axe and brought it down on the zip tie around the handles, severing it.

We burst out of the door, running headlong for the truck. I could hear the air horns blaring even from the opposite side of the building. The nearby infected had been spurred into action and were stumbling around the building toward the noise.

“It worked!” Colin yelled.

“Shut up!” Darren hissed.

An infected a few feet away veered toward us. Darren whacked it with the axe, part of its decayed face coming off.

“Dude, you just scalped that pinhead!” Colin said.

Darren chose to ignore his comment as he ripped open the truck’s driver side door. Colin regarded the lifted truck with a raised brow.

“Get in the back!” I commanded and tossed the bags into the cab.

We hopped up and barely had time to shut the doors—again—before Darren hit the gas.

“Dude, how small is your dick?” Colin taunted.

“Pfft.” I had to look out the window so Darren wouldn’t see me laugh.

“I’m not having this conversation with you until you’re eighteen,
kid
,” Darren retorted.

Colin’s smirk wavered. “Who knows if I’ll make it that long. Hell, you might die of old age by then.”

“I think we have more important things to worry about, yeah?” I said to get them to stop arguing.

The nearest infected chased after us, while the rest were too focused on the high-pitched noise of the air horns.

Once we cleared the campus grounds and got back on the main road, Colin poked his head into the front seat, pointing to a street on our left.

“Turn down here.”

“Why?”

“My car.”

“Why should I?” Darren said, antagonizing him.

“If you don’t, I’ll jump out of the truck.”

“Like I care.”

“All right, I got lots of supplies too,” Colin bargained.

“Darren, we said we would,” I said, feeling like we were parents squabbling with our restless kid during a road trip.

Darren rubbed at his temple. “Fine, but if the area’s too hot, we’re not stopping.”

“Okay.”

I’d expected more of a fight from Colin. He must really want to get to that car.

We were thrown to the side as Darren took the corner too sharply. A couple of infected bounced under the truck, sounding like dribbling basketballs.

“Now keep going down here until you see a paid parking lot sign practically falling off the side of a building.”

After a few blocks, we spotted the arrowed-shaped sign on our right. All the light bulbs along the edge had been broken and it was hanging awkwardly off the building, no longer pointing to the parking lot, but at the ground.

“Take a right in between the buildings and it’ll take you to a parking lot,” Colin instructed.

Darren slowed, and we scoped out the opening. The space was wide enough for us to fit through, but there were infected in our way.

“Mow the fucking pinheads down!” Colin yelled.

Darren put the truck in reverse and backed up until the tailgate was almost touching the building on the opposite side of the street. He was giving us a running start to bulldoze the wandering infected.

“Hold on,” Darren said before he put the gas pedal to the floor.

The tires squealed as the back end glided to the side before the wheels got traction. We took off so fast I was thrown flush against the back of my seat. The infected didn’t stand a chance as we barreled through the narrow entrance. Thanks to the height of the truck, the infected hit the grill, flying backward, and got tossed underneath the truck. The sound of the thick metal deer guard pulverizing bones resounded with every hit.

Darren slammed on the brakes as we hit the main lot, narrowly avoiding a parked car. In between an abandoned van and a truck was Colin’s red Mustang.

“She’s alive!” Colin exclaimed.

“You going to be okay driving?” I asked.

“I’ve been driving since I got my learners permit earlier this year. I got this.”

God, was I like that at his age?

I turned to Darren. “Maybe I should go with him.”

“Hell no,” Darren said before turning in his seat to face Colin. “You get in and follow me once I get turned around in here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Colin said.

He jumped out of the back and slammed the door. We watched him sprint to his car, taking out the only other none-flattened infected. Once we heard the car door shut, Darren drove around the lot to get us situated so we were facing the entrance we’d come in through.

Colin drove the Mustang right up to our back bumper. The kid was a tailgater. Darren left the parking lot with as much speed as before and turned left, back the way we’d come. He kept hitting the brakes to get Colin off our ass.

“The stupid kid is going to hit me,” he muttered.

He rolled down the window and flipped Colin off.

“You keep hitting the brakes like that and he sure will.”

After a few more road-rage sessions, I realized we weren’t heading to Hargrove.

“This isn’t the way back,” I said

“We still need to pick up feed, remember?”

In all the excitement, I’d totally spaced on that. Great, more stressful driving. It felt like I was on the worst kind of road trip: the never-ending kind.

Darren took a sharp turn.

“Are you trying to lose him?” I said.

Darren grinned but didn’t answer. Another group of infected introduced themselves to the truck’s guard. Blood and teeth were thrown against the windshield. Darren turned on the windshield spray until the blood ran down.

“How much do you think this truck can take?” I asked.

“The deer guard will prevent any damage from the infected. If we hit another car though, we’ll be in trouble.”

“Maybe you should stop showing off then,” I suggested.

“I’m not showing off.”

“Mm-hmm.”

At that, Darren slowed to a respectable speed.
Thank God.
I was starting to feel queasy.

“Pass me the map,” Darren said.

I reached into the console slot and took out the map. I unfolded the well-used paper and spread it out on the dash.

“How far are we?” Thanks to the breakneck speed he’d been going before, I imagined we’d be arriving sooner rather than later.

“We should be coming up on one. Byron circled a couple stores to choose from.”

The map indeed had various red circles scribbled all over the city; it looked like a treasure map.

Darren stabbed one of the spots with his finger. “We’re closest to this one.”

Turned out we weren’t as close as Darren had thought. We had to backtrack a bit, much to Colin’s dismay. He even honked once before Darren stopped the truck to yell at him for behaving like an idiot and making noise out in the open. This trip was taking forever.

Finally, we pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. The feed and seed store was at the end of the length of stores. Kind of an odd place for a feed store, but who was I to judge? Darren hit every visible infected, leaving behind a trail of carnage. When we got out, I spotted an arm stuck in the wheel well. Taking a deep breath—and a handful of tissues—I pulled the limb free.

The owner of the appendage was using his attached arm to wiggle along the pavement, not giving up on us. I grabbed the axe from the back and ran toward the gibbled infected. Colin beat me there with his baseball bat in hand.