’Til the World Ends (11 page)

Because you love me as much as I love you.

“Kylie.” Ben sighed, running his hands through his hair. He looked embarrassed, uncomfortable, and my heart sank. “We’ve only known each other a couple weeks,” he stammered, as my heart plummeted to my toes. “And after the whole Nathan situation, I was certain you hated me. I thought if I said anything, it would be too soon. That I would come across as some creepy, desperate guy and it would scare you off. And I couldn’t bear the thought of you leaving, so I stayed quiet.”

My heart roused a little, a tiny flare of hope lifting it up. “What are you trying to say?”

Ben swallowed. “I wanted to wait a little while. I thought that if we came here, and I convinced you to stay, I would have all the time in the world to tell you how I felt.” He glanced toward the curtained window, and his face darkened. “But we don’t have much time anymore, and it’s selfish of me to ask you to stay here, just because I—”

He stopped. My stomach was in knots, my heart racing, hanging on for those next few words. I wanted to hear them. I
needed
to hear them. “Because you...?”

Ben slumped, letting out a long breath. Leaning forward, he eased off the ottoman but didn’t stand, dropping to his knees in front of me. His calloused hands took mine and trapped them in gentle fingers, while his gorgeous, soulful dark eyes rose to meet my gaze.

“Because I love you,” he whispered, and my flattened heart swelled nearly to bursting. “I am completely and irreversibly in love with you, ever since that first night in your clinic when you told me you had survived. You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, and I can say with complete sincerity that I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t met you. You pulled me out of the darkness, and I will be forever grateful for that. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if you leave.” He squeezed my hands, his gaze never wavering from mine. “I love you, Kylie,” he murmured. “Stay with me. Till the end of the world.”

My eyes watered. Sliding forward, I wrapped my arms around his head and kissed him fiercely, feeling his arms yank me close. I buried my fingers in his hair and pressed myself against him, and for a moment everything—the rabids, Samson, the circle of death surrounding us on all sides—all melted away, and the only thing that mattered was the man in my arms. Let the world fall; I had my sanctuary right here. My own pocket of Eden.

“Ben?”

A soft, hesitant voice broke us apart, and we turned to see Rachel standing in the doorway, a flickering candle in hand, staring at us. But she wasn’t smirking or frowning; her eyes were wide and teary, and her free hand wrung the front of her shirt in quick, nervous gestures.

“Rachel, honey.” Ben let me go and crossed the room, kneeling down to face her. “You’re supposed to be downstairs with Mom and Aunt Sarah and the rest of them,” he said, putting himself, I noticed, between her and Samson’s body on the bed. “You need to go back to the basement, now.”

“I can’t.” The child sniffled, biting her lip. “I can’t find Davy.”

“Davy? Your goat?”

A nod. “I think he slipped out when I came upstairs to use the bathroom.”

Ben frowned. “Go back to Mom,” he told her, and the girl’s lip trembled. He smoothed her hair and gently tugged on an end. “I’ll find him and bring him back, okay?”

She sniffed and nodded. Turning, she padded down the hall, and we listened until the creak of the basement door echoed to us in the silence. Ben stood with a grimace.

“Care to go goat hunting with me?”

A soft clink came from the kitchen before I could answer. Ben and I shared a glance and hurried quietly into the living room.

Sunrise wasn’t far off. Instead of complete darkness, the slats over the windows let in a faint gray light, and the air held the stillness of the coming dawn. We could still hear the rabids, though, constantly shuffling around outside, sometimes passing in front of the windows, making the porch squeak. Ben had rotated the guard duty throughout the night, and the last watch huddled in the shadows and behind doorways, guns in their laps or beside them on the ground. It was lighter outside, the blackness losing ground to a muffled gray. We were almost in the clear, but we still had to be very, very careful.

I suddenly saw the kid, a glimmer of white in the shadows, trot out of the kitchen and into the front room. My heart stood still. Ben hurried forward, but before he could do anything, the frightened kid walked past one of the men, who instinctively reached out and grabbed it. The goat let out a startled bleat—and a rabid’s face slammed into the window, mad white eyes peering in. It screamed, sinking its claws into the wooden slats, shaking violently, and more bodies flung themselves onto the porch. Blows rattled the doors and windows, filling the house with noise.

“Everyone, stay calm!” Ben ordered as the men jumped to their feet, grabbing their weapons. “Get down to the lower levels and block the doors. Use the staircase and the hall as a choke point if they get through.” A slat ripped free of the frame, and a rabid’s face became fully visible through the space, blank and terrifying. It screeched, and Ben’s shotgun barked loudly, the flare from the muzzle searingly bright in the dark room. The rabid’s head exploded in a cloud of blood, and it fell back, only to have several others take its place. More slats began to tear loose, and Ben turned on the men. “Move! Now!”

As they scrambled away, fleeing downstairs, Ben shot a sick, terrified glance at me. “You, too, Kylie. Go to the safe room and bar the door behind you. Don’t open it for anything, understand?”

“What about you?” I gasped as he turned away. “Where are you going?”

“I have to get Dad!”

Ben fled down the hall, and I followed. Darting into the guest room, I slammed the door and leaned against it, panting, as Ben strode to the bed. Samson lay where he had all night, face up, eyes closed. But now, seeing him, I felt a chill go through my stomach. He was so very, very still. Too still.

“Ben,” I warned, but it was too late. He had already grabbed Samson’s arm to haul him over his shoulder. I watched, helpless, as Ben froze, staring down at his father, then slowly lowered the arm back to the mattress. His voice was a choked whisper in the shadows.

“He’s gone.”

Tears filled my eyes, more from the pain in Ben’s voice than for the man on the bed. He would never reconcile with his father now. And Samson had been harsh, abrasive, stubborn and infuriating, but he’d loved his family and, in his own way, done everything he could to protect them. He might not have been a good man, but Ben had loved him, and had struggled hard to be forgiven and accepted.

Which made what I was going to suggest even more horrible.

“Ben,” I said softly, hating that I had to bring it up. “We can’t leave him like this.” He gave me an anguished look, and I swallowed hard. “You have to...make sure he doesn’t come back,” I whispered. “You can’t let him turn into one of
them,
like Nathan.”

Understanding dawned on his face, followed by horror. I walked to the corner table and retrieved the revolver that Ben had given me that night. The metal was cool in my hands as I came back and stood in front of Ben, holding it out.

Ben’s eyes were glassy. He looked down at the gun and drew in a shuddering, ragged breath. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.” My own throat was tight, but I swallowed the tears and continued to hold out the gun. “He would’ve wanted this, Ben. It has to be done, and it has to be you. Go on.” I lifted the revolver toward him. “Take it. Set him free.”

A sob tore its way past his lips, but Ben slowly reached out and took the weapon from my hands. Turning stiffly, he raised the gun and pointed it at the corpse on the bed, aiming it right between the eyes. He was shaking, trembling like a leaf, but his arm was steady. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, using his thumb to click back the hammer.

Samson’s eyes flashed open, blazing white. Turning his head, he screamed, baring fangs, and the boom of the revolver shook the bed and the walls. Samson fell back amid a pool of blood, the top of his head blown apart with the violent explosion, and Ben fell to his knees.

An answering screech rang out beyond the door, making me sick with fear. They were in the house! I lunged across the room and locked the door, just as a bang from the other side made me shriek in terror. I stumbled back into Ben, on his feet once more, as the door shook and rattled, and the maddened wails from the monsters grew more numerous as they crowded forward on the other side.

We pressed back into the corner by the curtained window, watching as the only thing between us and death began peeling away, shuddering under the relentless assault. Surprisingly, I felt calm. So, this was it. This was how I was going to die. At least...I wouldn’t be alone.

Ben’s arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me back to his chest. I felt his forehead against the back of my neck, his warm breath on my skin. “I’m so sorry, Kylie,” he whispered, his voice shaking. I turned to face him, gazing up into those haunted brown eyes, placing a palm on his rough cheek.

“I love you, Ben,” I murmured, and watched his eyes widen. “I don’t regret any of this.” There was a splintering crack behind me, as a rabid tore a large chunk out of the door, but I didn’t turn. “You gave me a home, and a family, and if I had to do it all over, even knowing how it would end, I would still follow you anywhere.”

Ben leaned down, pressing his lips to mine, crushing them. I pressed forward, trying to feel him with my whole body, to merge my soul to his. We kissed one last time in that dark bedroom, the rabids shrieking at the door, Samson’s bloody corpse lying on the bed a few yards away.

Ben released my mouth, but he didn’t pull back, his forehead resting against mine. “They won’t take you,” he whispered fiercely, a bright, determined gleam in his eyes. “I won’t let them. You’re not going to die like that.”

The door shook again, rattling in its frame. They were almost through. Ben pulled back slightly, and there were tears in his eyes now, as I felt the cold barrel of the revolver under my jaw. It sent a shiver down my spine, but I wasn’t afraid. Yes, this was better. No pain, no teeth or claws tearing me open, ripping me apart. No chance to rise as one of them.

“It won’t hurt,” Ben promised, holding my gaze. “You won’t feel a thing, I swear. And I...I’ll be right behind you.”

He was shaking. I wrapped my fingers around his hand, holding it and the gun steady. He was watching me, waiting for my signal, to let him know I was ready. Behind me, the rabids screamed, almost as if they knew I was slipping away, to a place they couldn’t ever reach me. I almost smiled at the thought.

“Ready?” Ben whispered, and I took a deep breath. Behind him, through curtains and the slats in the window, I could see the sky, a soft dusky pink.

The window.
“Wait!” I whispered, tightening my grip on his. “Ben, wait.”

I pushed at the gun, and it dropped instantly as Ben yanked it down with a shudder of relief. Taking one step around him, I reached for the thick, black curtains covering the boarded window and threw them back.

Orange light streamed between the cracks in the wood, bright and promising, throwing ribbon-thin slivers of light over the floor. “Ben!” I gasped, spinning toward him, but he was already moving. Snatching the shotgun off the floor, he slammed the butt into the window, and the sound of breaking glass joined the wild screeching of the rabids.

I joined him, using a book from the shelf to batter at the wood. Frantically, we pounded at the boards over the window frame, as the rabids wailed and screamed behind us. The nails held, and the boards loosened, though they stubbornly refused to give.

With a final crack, the door burst inward. Howling, the rabids swarmed the room, flinging themselves across the floor. I cringed, bracing myself, just as Ben gave the board one last blow, and it came loose, flying out and away from the window frame.

A bar of orange sunlight spilled over the floor between us and the lunging rabids, and amazingly, the monsters skidded to a halt. Ben pressed back into the corner, holding me tightly to him as the swarm hissed and snarled at the edge of the light. I clung to Ben, forcing myself to keep my eyes open, to face the monsters not five feet away. I could feel Ben’s heartbeat, his breath coming in short gasps, the strength of his arms crushing me to his chest. The rabids hissed, frustrated, and one of them inched forward, out of the shadows and into the light.

There was a different sort of hissing as smoke erupted from its white skin. The rabid shrieked, flinging itself backwards. Clawing at itself and wailing, it turned and fled the room, the stench of burned, rotten meat rising into the air. The other rabids hissed and growled and gnashed their fangs at us, but slowly followed its example, filing out of the room. I peeked out the window and saw the pale forms scramble off the porch into the shadows outside, darting into bushes and trees, keeping out of the sun.

In seconds, they had disappeared.

A hazy mist hung over the distant woods and fields, pooling in low spots and coiling through the branches. Somewhere in the trees, a bird called out, and another answered it. The rabids were gone. They would be back tonight, that was certain, but for now, they were gone and we were still alive.

Or, most of us were.

I looked up at Ben and found him staring out the window, a bit dazed. He was still breathing hard, and his heart was still pounding, but he closed his eyes and, without warning, crushed me to him in a desperate hug.

I returned it. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t state the obvious: they would be back tonight when the sun went down. We just held each other, content to listen to our breaths and heartbeats mingle as the sun crept farther into the sky and touched every living thing with light.

* * *

We buried Samson that morning, beneath a single pine tree that stood tall and straight in the middle of the field. The sky was clear, and the sun blazed overhead, slanting through the branches of the pine, speckling the bare patch of earth at the trunk. Ben wore a borrowed tie and jacket, and standing beside the grave, his hands clasped in front of him, he looked solemn and serious...and very much like his father.