"See you at the fort," Dale said, clapping him on the shoulder and winking before walking toward the anxiously waiting people from the fort.
"Hold on," Rune said to the woman, glancing at her over his shoulder.
She didn"t answer as she kept staring at the tiny form. The young man who had yelled at Rune earlier grabbed the kid by her ankle and dragged her off the road. Finally, the woman looked away.
Rune gunned the engine and the Harley continued toward the fort. He was strangely entranced by the silent creature behind him. She was beautiful, but grim. Her eyes were large and haunted, but the set of her jaw and lips told him she was a fighter. He wanted to say something to her, but he knew that it would be empty words. She was in her own head, dealing with her own s.h.i.t.
As they rode, the woman let down her long hair with one hand and closed her eyes as the wind streamed through it. The tension around her jaw alleviated a bit and Rune tried hard not to keep glancing at his mirrors to look at her. He could feel her slowly relaxing and was pretty sure the ride was doing her some good. He found riding to be spiritual and wasn"t surprised to see she did too.
The trip to Ashley Oaks was uneventful and free of anymore of the shambling dead. He was impressed by the high walls surrounding the old hotel, newspaper building and city hall. He was even more impressed with the gated entry. As he pa.s.sed through the two different gates, he looked up to see sentries on the walls watching with interest.
Behind him, the pretty creature smeared in blood was silent, but slightly smiling. He could almost believe she was a ghost, but he had seen enough of those to know she was flesh and blood. It was tough being a medium when the world was full of the dead, but he was slowly getting used to it.
The final gate opened and the bike roared into a busy paddock. The woman pointed, and he directed the rumbling bike over to the empty spot.
She slid off the bike and patted his shoulder lightly.
"Thanks, dude. I needed that."
"No prob. Name"s Rune," he said, extending his hand to her.
"Jenni," she answered, shaking it briefly. With her dark hair shifting around her and her face splattered in blood, she looked fierce. "Also known as La Loca."
"Loca is good," Rune decided, giving her a rakish grin.
"Sometimes," she answered, winking and walking off.
He watched as she headed over to where people were cleaning off spears, machetes, hatchets and other weapons. A small building had steam rising out of it, and Rune guessed that was where they were cleaning off the zombie gore. Halfway there, Jenni leaped onto the back of a tall, lean Hispanic cowboy. With a grin, the cowboy carried her over to the rest of the returning team.
Rune sighed. Of course a fine woman like that was taken.
"Okay. Who the h.e.l.l are you? And what"s in the bag?" It was the old codger with the grizzled face.
"Rune." He opened the bag to show the old guy the grenades. "And a whole lot of hurt."
The man chuckled. "Name"s Ed. Welcome to the fort."
"Just staying until the storm blows over. Then I gotta move on." Rune shifted the bag.
"You sure?"
"Gotta keep moving," Rune answered. He could see the ghosts around him, faint shimmering things. "Gotta keep moving ahead of the dead."
Ed looked at him strangely.
"There ain"t no rest for the wicked, man," Rune joked. Or mediums, he thought. Ghosts were everywhere, just like zombies.
"You can"t escape the dead in this world," Ed finally said. "You"re welcome to stay if you like."
"Thanks, man. I"ll think about it." Rune shifted his bag of grenades.
"Like I said, we"ll see how it goes." The man who could see the dead looked around, studying the fort, seeing the flickering of spirits all around him. "We"ll see how it goes."
3. Promises and Shadows.
Juan grimaced at the stink coming off the woman he loved. She was hanging on his back, covered in drying blood and gore and reeked of death. She seemed immune to it, having been out in the deadlands all afternoon, but he had been in the nice and tidy dead-free zone of the fort.
It amazed him that he had been used to the stench of the dead when they had been under siege in the first days. It was strange how humans acclimated to things like that. But once the dead throngs were cleared out and clean fresh breezes filled the fort, the smell of the dead was again sharp and repellent.
"You ruined my jacket, Loca," he grumbled, trudging toward the clean up area.
"It"s ugly anyway," she a.s.sured him. "Besides, I"m tired. Spoil me."
"As if I have a choice," Juan drawled, grinning and grimacing at the same time. "What did you do this time to get so messy?"
"Up close and personal decapitations of the zombie kind. I went whackywhacky with my trusty ax."
"You"re supposed to shoot them before they get too close." He felt his stomach coil up at the thought of her fighting with the ravenous dead.
"Yeah, well, sometimes runners see it a different way."
"s.h.i.t! Running zombies?"
"Fresh and fast. I think another van of survivors ended up a buffet."
Jenni sighed, laying her head against his shoulder.
He tried hard not to be angry with her. Sometimes it was d.a.m.n hard.
She had a tendency to act first, think later. Her rabid hatred of the undead often spurred her to insane acts of heroics.
"I just wish you didn"t take so many chances," he said at last.
"Well, zombies need to be killed or they munch on us." Her voice was soft, almost petulant. "A girl"s gotta do what a girl"s gotta do."
"You mean a loca going loca," Juan corrected.
"It works, doesn"t it? Zombies die. I come home to you."
"I just worry."
"I"m not going to die without a fight," Jenni a.s.sured him.
"I don"t want you to die."
"I"m not gonna!"
"Says the loca."
They reached the fenced in area where the weapons were being cleaned and where Charlotte was attending to any wounded. A bite was deadly.
Everyone knew that, but they had two instances where someone had tried to hide their wound only to turn after entering the paddock. It was frustrating to have to implement additional measures to keep the fort safe, but they had no choice. Two armed guards stood watch as Charlotte finished bandaging up a newcomer. A pistol was tucked into the holster on her hip as an extra precaution.
Juan plopped Jenni down onto a lawn chair and stared down at her b.l.o.o.d.y appearance. "Seriously, you couldn"t shoot them in the head before they reached you?"
"Well, I was trying, but they were kinda fast. And then it just got all crazy." A dark and frightening emotion shadowed her expression and then it disappeared.
With a sigh, Juan sat next to her, taking off his cowboy hat. Slouching down in his chair, he pondered demanding to know what had happened out there. Jenni had her moments when it was clear that the grief she felt over the loss of her children was overwhelming her, but he could not say anything when this happened. His beloved tended not to speak of the past at all. Occasionally a snippet or two of information would leak out about her life as an abused trophy wife and mother, but it was never on purpose. It was always worse when she saw something out in the deadlands that reminded her of her children, but she had been handling those situations better of late.
Jenni flipped her hair over one shoulder and stared at him. He had a feeling she knew he was holding his tongue.
"What?" He finally said.
"It was a kid. She got bit. The new guy on the bike had to kill her. I saw the light go out of her eyes. I saw the hunger come into them."
His eyebrows flew up.
"I"ve never seen that before," Jenni continued. "The life goes out. It was so clear. I could see it. Like a curtain falling over her spark. Then bam.
Here comes the hungry zombie." Shaking her head, she pulled the ax off her back and tossed it onto the ground.
"f.u.c.king scary, huh?" Juan muttered.
Nodding mutely, Jenni slumped down in the chair. Nearby, Charlotte was examining the older, Indian woman. Jenni motioned toward them. "It was her grandkid. It sucked." Jenni thought for a long moment, swinging her legs back and forth. "I don"t want that to happen to me."
Juan was silent, knowing better than to say a word. It could shut her up and cut him off if he said the wrong thing.
"I don"t want you or anyone else to see the light go out in my eyes and the crazy hungry zombie look come into them."
"Jenni, that"s not gonna-"
"You can"t say that!" Jenni pointed at him, her voice vehement. "You cannot say that! You don"t know. None of us know. Bob died today. I"m sure he didn"t go out there thinking he was gonna bite it."
"Okay, okay. You"re right. None of us can know. You just gotta be extra careful when you go out there."
"I want a bullet right here-" Jenni pointed to her forehead. "-if it ever goes down that way. I want it fast. I don"t want to be one of those things. I don"t want the light in my eyes to go out and for the hungry zombie to take over."
Juan stared into her dark, luminous eyes, tinged with the Jenni madness that made him crazy for her and love her more than he thought possible.
The mere thought of her not being next to him made his throat tighten with emotion. He didn"t know what to say, and she seemed to be waiting for words to soothe her. At last, he managed to say, "Okay," his voice cracking slightly.
Nodding, satisfied, Jenni curled up in her chair. She looked so small and so delicate, the blood splatter and the reek of the dead couldn"t keep him away. He grabbed her arm and tugged her firmly out of her chair and onto his lap. Holding her close, he nuzzled her cheek. Her body melded into his and she made a small, happy sound that made him smile.
Chapter 3.
1. The Boring Things In Life.
"How many boxes?" Peggy"s voice droned.
Katie quickly counted the boxes of ammunition, her fingers lightly touching each stack. "Fifty."
"d.a.m.n," Peggy muttered. She shoved her brown hair back from her frowning face and made a notation on her clipboard.
The two women were in the storage room used for the ammunition stock.
In recent days, a fresh batch of zombies had appeared out of the Texas Hill Country. There was speculation that they were from one of the fort"s neighboring towns. A few of the zombies had been somewhat recognizable as former friends or business acquaintances. Nerit had ordered the horde destroyed, and a good chunk of ammunition had been used up.
"We still got a lot in these other boxes," Katie reminded her.
"Yeah, but if they don"t find fresh supplies, we better learn to make our own bullets soon," Peggy responded.
Katie nodded, her hand gently rubbing her swelling belly. In the days before the zombie uprising, she had never imagined being pregnant. It was something her wife, Lydia, and she had discussed a few times, but adoption had always been seen as the route to go. Now, time was more precious and not to be squandered. Death was everywhere as the living struggled to maintain a foothold on the world.
She had been forced to decide when the world ended whether to let her sorrow drag her down into the depths of despair and give up or fight to survive. She had chosen to survive. In the silence of the night, she still mourned Lydia and their old life, but she had also allowed herself to let go of the old world. That had opened the door for her to find love with Travis and now they were expecting a baby.
"Jason and the kids are working on new weapons for the perimeter. It"s scary how good they are at inventing diabolical ways to take out the zombies," Katie remarked as they moved to the next box.
"Yeah, well, kids are always good at finding ways to be in trouble. They"re just frying zombies instead of ants now." Peggy looked around the room at all the shelves stuffed with battered boxes of ammo. "It never feels like enough, does it?"
Katie shook her head. "No, it doesn"t."
Peggy looked down, her expression clouded with fear and pain, and then she shrugged. "Nothing we can do but keep going and hope to G.o.d we don"t get eaten."
There was nothing really to say to that, so Katie kept quiet. Everyone in the fort had their moments. It seemed to be happening more now. Travis was gloomy about the dampened spirits of the fort, but Katie thought it was probably only natural. There were more cold, overcast days than sunny. Also, illnesses had been working their way through the fort population. The flu had already made one pa.s.s and a bad cold had many people stuck in bed. Plus, the safety of the fort allowed people to actually have moments of peace. Strangely, it was easier to shove all that pain and terror away when fighting to live. It was the mundane daily routine that made things harder to handle. Old ghosts and old memories seemed to surface at unexpected moments.
Realizing she may have upset Katie, Peggy looked back at the tall blond standing behind her. "I mean, we ain"t gonna get eaten. I mean, look at this place. We got it made compared to the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out there. I"m sure we"re all gonna be safe and sound. And your sweet baby will be fine."
Smiling slightly, Katie reached out to pat Peggy on the shoulder. "I know."
"And that team will come back packed to the gills with ammunition and more supplies, and I won"t be such a worried old hag."
"Peggy, you"re not old and you"re not a hag."
"I feel like it. Worn out and tired. Cody has got that d.a.m.n cold something fierce, and I was up all night with him. I just hate seeing him suffer. It makes me feel so helpless." Peggy sighed and shook her head. "I miss his daddy at times like these. He was so good at calming him down."
Peggy rarely spoke about her husband who had died in the first days.
Katie knew from things Peggy"s little boy said that they had seen him transformed into a zombie. Cody was a sensitive soul to begin with and the death of the world had crushed him. For months he had not left his mother"s side, always clinging to her and terrified whenever she was out of his view. But lately, with other children joining the fort, he had been braver. He was now able to be away from his mother a few hours at a time without panicking.