After the End (19 page)

They all stopped, straining to see or hear more. Something was happening in the distance. At last, something was being done to help.

"Maybe that Hunter woman and Ann were right," Joe muttered so only Lila could hear. "Maybe it really is safer to find a place and hole up until everything is sorted out."

"Come on," Ari called. "Keep moving."

"My ankle," Sondra said. "I've got to rest soon."

Lila stifled her irritation. It wasn't Sondra's fault she'd been injured, and maybe her ankle really did hurt as much as she claimed. It had certainly been swollen yesterday. But the woman was such a drama queen Lila couldn't help but feel she enjoyed being the center of attention.

"There's a diner up there." Deb pointed. "Maybe we can find some food that's not spoiled."

The greasy spoon joint was open for business and smelled like the bowels of hell. They entered carefully, listening for sounds of other survivors or the roving undead, but the place was still except for buzzing flies. The floor was tacky with blood. Red was smeared on the walls, the booths, the counter, remnants of customers mingling with abandoned plates of the lunch special, which a hand-written sign announced was tuna salad and minestrone soup.

Lila's eyes watered from the stench. She wanted to turn around and go right back outside, but Ian was fussing, working himself up to a good, hard cry. They didn't need that noise drawing attention.

Gloria found a booth in the back that wasn't gore spattered and sat down to feed her son. She moved like the undead herself, a blank-eyed automaton going through the motions of living. Sondra and Ronnie sat across from her. Ari kept watch while the rest of them went to the kitchen to scavenge for food.

Derrick and Carl investigated the dry goods pantry, bringing out boxes of cereal, crackers, chips and cans of soup and pudding. Julie opened one of the industrial sized soup cans which Deb put in a pan to heat. The stove was gas so she could light the burner with her Bic. Lila realized she hadn't seen Deb smoke a cigarette the past couple of days. Either she'd run out or was choosing the most stressful time possible to give up the habit.

After Julie opened a gallon can of tapioca, Lila scooped it into bowls. Joe produced a package of bacon from the freezer, which he claimed hadn't completely defrosted yet. He laid strips on a griddle over another burner then got bread from a rack on the wall.

"Don't dare spread that mayonnaise on it. No doubt it's spoiled," Mrs. Scheider warned as he unscrewed the lid of a jar.

"I'm not an idiot. I didn't get it from the fridge. It's freshly opened," Joe said.

Even the grown-ups are getting short-tempered
, Lila thought with amusement. The rising scent of frying bacon tantalized her nose and had her saliva glands working overtime. It almost covered the horrible odor of decay all around them. Deb prepared a pot of coffee and it started to percolate on the back burner.

The familiar breakfast smells of bacon and coffee eased Lila's taut nerves and gave her comfort. But the very moment she relaxed, the sound of shattering glass came from the front of the building. Sondra and Gloria's screams resounded through the air followed by gunfire.

"Shit! You guys, go." Derrick grabbed his rifle and rushed to the front to help.

The others ran for the back exit. Deb grabbed Carl by the arm and dragged him along with her. Lila was torn between escaping with them and going to help Ari. But he'd given them all instructions to "run, Forest, run" if they were attacked. While she hesitated, her moment to decide was past as zombies swarmed around the lunch counter. Lila threw the cast iron frying pan of bacon at the closest one then ran out the kitchen door into the alley.

Joe, Carl and Deb were pushing a dumpster in front of the door to block it. Lila barely made it out in time before they heaved the heavy metal container in front of it. Bodies banged against the door from inside. The loud, horrible thumps made the door rattle in its frame, but the dumpster held firm.

"Come on." Deb lead the way up the alley.

"But the others." Lila protested.

"We can only hope they made it out the front. We'll meet them at the building on the corner like we said we'd do if we got separated."

Lila knew she was right, but it didn't make leaving the others behind feel any better. She trotted to keep up with the group, but her heart and mind were with Ari in the diner. It didn't seem possible he and Derrick would manage to fight off the zombies and get everyone safely out.

On the way to the office building they'd chosen as a meeting point, they saw a running group of people in the distance followed by a posse of revenants. Flattening their bodies against the nearest wall, they held still and waited for the commotion to die down before resuming their run. They burst into the building's lobby. Joe and Deb did a quick sweep of the ground floor, which was mostly a maze of cubicles. Julie, Carl and Lila waited near the front, watching anxiously for the rest of their group.

When Lila sighted them, her throat tightened. Ari carried Ronnie, her arms and legs wrapped tight around him as if she was a little monkey. Sondra limped beside Derrick, holding onto his arm, and Gloria with Ian in her arms brought up the rear.

"Wait. Where's Mrs. Scheider?" Julie said. "She was in back with us."

"She went to use the restroom just before... Shit!" Carl exclaimed.

"No." Lila looked around the lobby as if the woman would magically appear. "I'm sure she was with us." But no amount of wishing would make it true. Mrs. Scheider was missing.

Ari and the others burst through the door just as Deb and Joe returned to give the all clear status on the ground floor of the building.

"We left Mrs. Scheider," Lila announced.

"Damn it!" Derrick's face was a mask of blood, the whites of his eyes stark against it. "We fought off about a dozen zombies and got everyone out without a scratch, and you guys ditched Mrs. Scheider?"

"It was an accident. We didn't mean to leave her behind. We didn't notice she was missing until we got here. But she was in the restroom, so she might be alive."

Ari unfastened Ronnie's arms from around his neck and set her on the floor. "I'll go back and see if I can find her."

"Wait," Deb said. "She's gone and it's terrible but we can't risk losing you. What happened to 'it's all about the mission'?"

"I'm afraid Deb's right," Joe added. "It's not likely Patricia made it out alive."

Lila had nearly forgotten Mrs. Scheider's first name. Hearing Joe say it filled her with a fresh pang of guilt and sorrow.

"No one went back for my husband. No one saved him!" Silent Gloria was suddenly vocal, her eyes blazing and her face twisted in a scowl.

Ari turned to her. "It was too late for him, but it might not be for Mrs. Scheider. I'll only do a recon. If it's too dangerous, I won't go in." Before anyone could argue, he left, slipping out the door and running down the street much faster than he could with all of them slowing him down. Maybe he'd been right before and he should take the data, Carl and only a couple of other useful people like Deb or Derrick and head for the marina. They could probably make it there in an afternoon, take a boat and be on the mainland by evening. The rest of the world might be overrun with zombies, too, but it couldn't possibly be as dangerous as being trapped on an island with them.

Lila sank to the floor, but her leg jiggled nervously as she waited for Ari's return. She listened while Sondra related the story of their escape, how the zombies had stormed the diner, crashing right through the large, plate glass windows; how Sondra had grabbed Ronnie and Gloria and led them outside through the broken window while Ari and Derrick held off the zombies; and how they'd dodged and hid to shake some of the monsters which pursued them.

"Shut up, Sondra," Derrick cut across her chatter. "Just shut up for a while." He sat on the floor, holding Ronnie on his lap and rocking her. She was pressed against his chest, her thumb in her mouth and the stuffed unicorn clenched in her other hand. Her eyes were wide open and staring.

Lila wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her knees. Seconds slipped past like droplets of blood, clotted and sticky. Ari wasn't coming back. … He was. … He'd have Mrs. Scheider with him, safe. … Both of them were dead and they were waiting here for ghosts—or maybe zombies.

"They're here," Joe announced. "He's got her." He opened the door and Ari came in, carrying Mrs. Scheider in his arms. There was blood everywhere, her face, her arms, and his, too. Ari staggered and Joe helped him lower the woman to the floor.

Joe stripped away her blouse and checked her wounds. With no running water and their supply of bottled water running low, he used it sparingly, rinsing away the blood from her neck and shoulder. Deb knelt beside him, holding a flashlight trained on the wounds, while Julie dampened fresh cloths and offered them to him.

Lila did the same for Ari, wetting a T-shirt and offering it to him to clean up with. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "It's her blood—and some of theirs. The things were gone when I got back there. She had run into the pantry and barricaded the door, but not before they bit her. Luckily she was still conscious and heard my voice, because she passed out almost immediately after I found her."

"If their blood mixed with hers, she must be infected," Deb said.

"I don't know," Carl answered. "I don't know if the mutated blood could enter her bloodstream. If she's not the same blood type, I couldn't imagine that happening."

"I can't imagine any of this happening, but it is," Joe said sourly as he continued to swab the bites on Mrs. Scheider's shoulders and upper back.

The old woman stirred, blinked, and opened her eyes. She looked around at them all hovering over her.

Julie offered her water, holding a bottle to her mouth and cupping the back of her head. "How do you feel?"

Mrs. Scheider swallowed. "How do you think I feel?"

"Like you've been bit by zombies." Derrick matched her dry tone.

"We're so sorry we left you. We thought you were with us." Julie smoothed her hand over the woman's gray hair, the salon style now flat and limp.

Mrs. Scheider tried to sit up and winced at the pain.

Joe pushed her back down. "Just lie still and rest while I bandage you." He took the strips of cloth Gloria had torn from a shirt and began to bind her wounds.

Lila knelt beside Ari, wet another rag and sponged at the blood he'd missed along his hair line. She cupped his face and wiped away the traces of gore, but knew they were there whether they showed or not. The memories of what he'd seen and done—what all of them had—could not be erased so easily.

When she'd finished wiping his face clean, she paused for a moment, his face still cupped in her hand. She studied the dark outer ring of his iris and the velvety brown within and the way his pupils dilated as he looked back at her. Tension crackled between them. A kiss floated on the air waiting to be snatched. Then Lila let go, took her hand from his warm skin and sank back onto her heels. "There. That's better."

But it wasn't. Better would have been leaning in and giving him a long, deep kiss.

The near miss in the diner along with Mrs. Scheider's injuries and Sondra's swollen ankle put a stop to their travels for the day. They'd only made it a hand full of blocks from the Tastee-Freez. No one, not even Ari, had the stomach to venture back out to find food so they ate the last of their power bars and shared some sports drinks.

"I sure would've liked some of that bacon," Derrick murmured.

Lila agreed with him, but tried to remember they were lucky to have any food. She thought of her mother's voice telling her to clean her plate. "Think of the starving children in third world countries." She slowly chewed and swallowed her half of a power bar and prayed her mother and father were still alive and safe.

They moved out of the lobby to set up camp in office cubicles so generic they were utterly forgettable. Temporary walls, cheap furniture and pathetic attempts by their owners to personalize the cubicles were all the impression Lila had of the place. Sleeping on industrial grade carpet with no cushions or covers the group passed another night, huddled together in darkness.

By morning, Sondra's ankle was much better, but Mrs. Scheider was pale, weak and unconscious again. Joe felt her pulse and listened to her labored breathing. "I don't know what's wrong with her besides this bite. Perhaps she's just had too much strain on her heart. She needs to be in a hospital getting fluids and oxygen."

"She should rest another day. We all should," Gloria said.

It doesn't look like she has another day in her
, Lila thought.

Ari stood, looking down at the woman for a few moments. Lila could almost see him weighing his options. The need to keep moving was obvious, as was the fact that Mrs. Scheider was not likely to recover. But he didn't want to simply pronounce her dead and abandon her, leaving her struggling for breath.

"I'm going up a few floors to take a look at the city and get some perspective," he said.

His double meaning wasn't lost on Lila. She would've liked to go along with him, but sensed he needed time alone to consider his decision. She watched him disappear through the door to the stairs then went to help Julie and Deb scavenge food in the offices and break room.

All they could find in the desks was snack foods and a couple of apples. By the time they'd brought their loot to the conference room and everyone was seated around the table to eat, Mrs. Scheider was much worse and Derrick went to get Ari.

Although her stomach was grumbling, Lila couldn't stand the thought of eating. She didn't know how they could either with Mrs. Scheider lying there wheezing. They should've laid her in a different room, but it was too late to move her now.

Lila knelt beside Joe, dipped a cloth in water and held it to the old woman's dry lips. She wished she had ice chips to feed her and remembered doing that for her grandmother when she was in the hospital on her deathbed. She held Mrs. Scheider's frail hand, closed her eyes and prayed for her to leave the world peacefully—and not reanimate. The thought of having one's corpse tottering around trying to eat people was horrible.