Alive (The Crave) (4 page)

“What about your house? We could go there,” she said trying to make amends for her harsh response.

“No thanks.”

She nodded her head. They walked along the old farm to market road she had been down many times. The scenery hadn’t changed much, still wide-open fields with a railroad track flanking one side. Several rusted vehicles littered the road on both sides.

She could see the green road sign up ahead. Still mounted on a metal pole.
The Town of Sunder Population 704.
The last time she saw the sign shimmered in her mind. Her and Olive had been running for their lives, speeding down the road in their dad’s old Toyota Corolla, with jenks all around them. They were everywhere. They still were. It didn’t matter where anyone went, there would always be some on their trail. It had only been six months after the Crave—up until then they had stayed at home with their parents who were still living, and neither her or her sister were used to the undead.

At the time, she thought she never would be.
Who gets used to being stalked constantly? Constantly fearing for their life?
It was an easy question to answer now. A person could get used to anything if they had to. The few that were following her and Gage were a ways off, staggering at a sluggish pace.

“Actually, I do want to go by my home.” Thoughts of her sister invoked the idea. “Maybe Olive has been by there.” Her sister had, what Eve considered, an unnatural love for their parents. It did make a little bit of sense. Olive had always been the favorite.

Eve had no desire to see the house. She fought the urge to retch at the very thought.
Chill out. Don’t vomit up the good food you finally got to eat.
She took a deep breath.

She could still taste the salty beef jerky he’d given her the night before and earlier in the day for breakfast. She’d hated the stuff growing up.
Who wants to chew on hard meat?
Now she reveled in the succulent taste. It was actually a packaged kind too. Some that he’d looted from a store on his way back from searching for his brother. The
best by
date reflected more than two years ago, but she ate it anyway and nothing had ever tasted so good.

“Cool. There’s somewhere I want to go too. It would take us a little out of the way, but I think it’d be worth it. Wanna go?”

“Where?” Eve should have felt skeptical, but couldn’t help but be intrigued. What place could he be talking about here in town?

“Jacksondale.”

Memories of the old home came running back. It was a beautiful plantation that had been a part of the community since it became one more than a hundred years before. Eve had always dreamed of going there, but never had the chance. The family that owned it only invited other exclusive families over. Gage’s family, with their money and athletic abilities, was another startling difference between the two of them.

His father, an African American man, had been a doctor at the closest hospital in Fenton and his mother was a white woman and a stay at home mom. His mixed heritage made him the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
Seriously Eve? Why are you torturing yourself?
She didn’t have to like the man to admit that he was handsome, even more so now. In high school he was
it.
The
end all be all
guy that every girl wanted with his dark skin and light eyes, not to mention his skills on the football field and in the classroom.

He was the top of his senior class with a 4.0 GPA. The captain of the football team. He always had the hottest girlfriends, the coolest friends. His life was perfect, bursting with future and potential, while hers had been exactly the opposite. He and his family lived in a massive home north of town that made the three-bedroom trailer she lived in all her life look like cardboard box that a bum discarded. Even with its fabulous beauty, his house didn’t compare to Jacksondale. Not that she had ever been inside of it, either.

“Sure.” She tried to be as nonchalant about it as possible, but a part of her ached to see Jacksondale, to go inside and see what it was like, to feel a part of the heritage of her hometown for once in her life, even if she wasn’t actually invited.

“You ever been there?”

She shook her head without looking at him and focused on the buildings they were approaching while kicking a rock away with her boot.

“You’ll like it. It’s pretty cool.”

“So I’ve heard.” The words left a sour taste in her mouth.
As if he really needs to rub it in that I was never invited there.

He didn’t say anything, but she felt his eyes on her. She had the urge to yank the Craftsman from her back and thrust it at his neck. Not to kill him, just to let him know that she wasn’t here to fuck around and revisit the past. She almost laughed at her own thoughts. There was no avoiding the memories. They would plague her to her last breath and after…if jenks had memories. She didn’t know.

Less than thirty minutes later, Eve stood next to Gage in front of the only gas station in town. The old wooden sign displayed the weathered, barely legible words: Sunder General Store, and hung at an odd angle. Eve was sure with the right gust of wind the sign would swing forward and bang against the aged wooden building. Before the Crave one could find the same elderly men sitting at the old rickety table outside and at lunchtime a bunch of high school kids scraping their pennies together to buy a bag of chips and a burger.

The wire table was still outside, but toppled over and the chairs that surrounded it were gone. An old pick-up truck sat sideways in the closest parking space next to the front door. All the tires were flat and the windows were smashed.

The paper sign in the window said
open
.

“You loot the place before you left town?”

Eve glanced up at Gage. “No. You?” She had been too afraid and they’d been running for their lives. She hadn’t become accustomed to killing at the time, the living or the dead, much less stealing from anyone.

“No.” He shook his head. He didn’t elaborate, but Eve didn’t miss the sad expression that crossed his face.

“I’m sure there’s nothing in there. Probably looted years ago.”

“Yeah, but people are sloppy when they’re scared. I’m sure there is something edible.”

She shifted her heavy pack and knew what she would be looking for when she got inside. “True.”

He ran a hand over his short hair and she wondered how he cut it, considering there were no more barbershops, and still made it look like nice, unlike her butchered cut.
Seriously Eve? Who cares how he cuts his hair?
Her subconscious prodded her and she felt like an idiot.

“This was one of the first businesses built in town—even before the old school house. Miles Sunder built it. It was a butcher shop,” he said with a matter-of-fact air about him.

“I didn’t know that.” She looked back at the building, seeing it thriving with life, instead of a rusted gas pumps and broken windows.

“It was called Sunder Butcher Shop. It had sign in the window. Do you know what it said?”

Eve furrowed her brow and glanced up at Gage. “No?” It came out as a question, though she didn’t intend for it to be.
Where is this coming from?

“Best Butcher for Miles around.” His full lips quirked in the corner as her gaze zeroed in on the fullness of them. She hadn’t kissed a man in such a long time… “Come on, Eve, you don’t get it?” He sounded disappointed. She looked down at her feet, evaluating his words before stifling a snort, an act that felt foreign.

“Miles was his name.”

“Yes. Only took you an hour, but yes.” He was laughing at her. When she looked up at him again. His gray eyes twinkled, and the quirk on his lips had spread into a full smile that made her heart thunder in her chest. “Let’s go in.”

Stop it, Eve. Don’t look at look him like that. He means nothing to you.
An idea formed in her head.

“You wanna stay out here and keep watch, while I go in and sweep the place?”
Yes.
That was it. She would go in get what she needed and sneak out the back door.

She had to ditch him.
Why am I even here with him in the first place?
The answer to that was complicated and simple all at once. A part of her didn’t want to ditch him. She was relatively confident that he wouldn’t hurt her, but relative confidence meant nothing in the new world. People would murder for nothing. Just so they wouldn’t have to worry about someone as a potential threat. She’d done as much.

“We’re both going in.” His tone took her aback. One glance revealed that his smile was gone, his jaw ticking.

“I just think that someone should keep watch.”

“You’re going to try and ditch me. Aren’t you?”

“What?” Eve was shocked that he figured her out so quickly. “No. I didn’t say that. I just think it would be safer—”

“No you don’t.”

His voice had taken on an angered quality that Eve didn’t like. “Yes I—”

“You need me to help you get to Eden, in Fenton. You won’t make it there alone.”

“Eden?” She furrowed her brow. “That’s the name of the town?”

“Yes. And you need my help to get there.”

As if she needed him.
Ha!
“I don’t require you for anything, thank you very much. I lived in this damned place for most of my life. I know how to reach the old courthouse in Fenton. Just because it has a new name doesn’t mean that I forgot how to get there. I don’t
need
you or your guidance.” She spat the words at him. “I’ve lived alone for over a year and before that, I had to care for my sister and protect us. She never lifted a finger to do anything, to kill anyone. I did it!” Eve was breathing hard, sucking in the hot air in quick bursts. “I knew I should have gutted you in that field yesterday. No one tells me what
I
need.” She reached back for her Craftsman.

No sooner had her hand touched the red, sun-warmed grip than his grasped her wrist, preventing her from doing any sort of movement. She tried to punch him with her other hand, which he subdued easily. This only pissed her off more. She had taken down grown men with her strength and speed and he subdued her like she was a kitten.

He jerked her body forward as she struggled against his iron grip. He didn’t stop until he had her back pressed against the decaying wall of the old wooden building with her backpack scrunched painfully in between.

“I know what you need, Eve. You need me.” White-hot heat stabbed through her body like a knife. She fought the urge to rub against him.
No, don’t let him control your body like this!
“You can deny it all you want. You can escape and head to Eden on your merry way. I know you know where it is. I know you don’t need some fucking tour guide.” His words were vicious, his gray eyes brighter than moments before.

“Then why won’t you let me go? Huh?” She choked the words out, hoping he didn’t notice how he affected her.

“You don’t know what’s out there.”

“Like hell. I know what’s—”

“Do you? Do you really know? Tell me Eve, which way were you going to go to get there?”

“What difference does it make?” She pushed against him desperate to be away from him and the rioting emotions in her body, but he pinned her fast against the wall.

“Just answer the question.” He clenched his teeth.
What the hell is going on?

“The interstate.” Anger boiled in her breast and she let it overwhelm her, happy that it overpowered her lusty thoughts. This was exactly why she didn’t group up with people. Someone started acting like the head honcho. Thinking they called all the shots and controlled everyone.

“Do you know what’s over off good ol’ interstate thirty-five these days? Have you been down that road since the Crave?”

“No, but I’m sure you won’t stop squashing the shit out of me until you tell me,” Eve said with a droll look, rolling her eyes.

“There’s a whole camp of Lurkers over there. And when I say camp I’m not saying like two or three of them, I’m saying like hundreds Eve.”

Eve frowned and laughed. “Oh yeah? What the hell is a Lurker?”

“It’s someone who’s addicted to everything that has to do with the gurghs. Eating them. Burning their bodies to ash and snorting the charred remnants for a high. They’re dangerous.”

“Seriously, Lurkers?” she said between laughs.

Gage loosened his grip on her arms and ran a hand over his face. “This is serious, Eve.”

“I know it is.” She stared up into Gage’s rugged features. She’d heard a story about people like this from the last person she’d met on the road. A man who claimed to have escaped one of those camps, but he’d called them Zunkies. Some sort of lame play on the words “zombie junky”. They would stalk the undead and the living. Capturing anything and everything. It had become a last resort for some people, trapping the jenks and eating them, only no one had bargained that their flesh would taste like heaven and be more addicting than crystal meth.

Eve had laughed at the man at first, but he’d been dead serious. He was older and seemed nice and she’d considered keeping him on as a companion since she’d only lost her sister a few weeks before that time. She’d been feeling lonely.

He hadn’t been with her for even half a day before he’d tried to paw at her, wanting to have sex. She’d told him no, but he wouldn’t stop. She hadn’t thought twice about yanking her Craftsman from her back and gutting him there on the side of a road right outside of Tyler, Texas.

“I can handle myself.”

“Oh, yeah? And what happens the next time you decide to mentally check out? I won’t be there to save you.”

The words were like a slap in the face. “You don’t fucking know me, Gage. I don’t need—”

“Don’t need what? Saving?” His handsome face took on a mocking look. “Clearly you do.”

“But—”

“And you’re right Eve. I don’t know you at all. I have no fucking clue where the old you went, but you’re probably the only person still alive from my old life and I plan to keep it that way, whether you like it or not.” He wielded his words with power, his gray eyes focusing in on her like she was a slide under a microscope. She noticed how his nose was slightly crooked, probably from being broken at some point, but it did nothing to diminish his handsomeness.
Why am I noticing this now?