Among Monsters: A Red Hill Novella (14 page)

“Skeeter must have cleared most of them before he left. He knew April was still here with her kids. Probably did it as a favor since he couldn’t stay.”

“Did she want him to stay?”

“Connor said she asked him to, but he said no.”

Dad frowned.

I rolled my eyes. “No. Don’t tell me.”

“What?” he said, instantly defensive.

“Are you and April—?”

“No,” he said, tucking his chin and making the most ridiculous attempt to deny it.

He was a terrible liar. His eyes would glass over, and he’d blink a lot. That, and he had a whole lie face that he’d make.

My eyes and stomach rolled at the same time. “Gross.”

“Don’t ask if you don’t wanna know,” he said, positioning himself to swing if something came out of the back door.

“She just lost her husband. Her kids are in the house. It’s just wrong.”

“We all cope differently. Get ready.”

I pulled up the bat, holding it in both hands.

Dad pushed open the door and then stepped back, waiting for something to jump out at us. When that never happened, he walked inside.

I glanced around me. A few infected were just walking into the church parking lot, a hundred or so yards away.

“Dad?”

He appeared in the doorway. “It’s clear—for now. Let’s get in and get out. The windows are wide open.”

The room was dark, so I took off my sunglasses and perched them on the bill of my hat. Then, I stepped over the mess of bodies on the floor before shutting the door behind me.

Just inside the door, in a small kitchen in the back of the church, I saw a few cupboards. I found an opened case of water, a big bag of chips, a mixed bag of apples and oranges, half a dozen cans of various vegetables, and cans of Spam.

It all went into my backpack, and then I walked down a hall before seeing a flight of stairs leading up to a doorway. Corpses of infected lay in a pile at the bottom, and a few were draped over the stairs.

“Should we check up there?” I asked.

“We’re going to have to. They’re coming in. Go. Go!” Dad ran past me to the top.

He opened the door, getting ready to swing at anything in his way. He checked behind the door and then motioned for me to follow him inside just as I heard infected pawing at the back door downstairs along with moans coming from another part of the church below.

Dad shut the door behind me, and I looked around. It was just one big room with a few tables, chairs, and a corkboard. There was also a television on a rolling stand and a gaming console. The walls were decorated with pictures illustrating stories from the Bible, from Jesus walking on water to Noah and the ark.

I laughed once.

“What?” Dad asked.

“They’re all white.”

“So?”

I shrugged. “I’ve just always thought that it’s funny how all the people in Bible pictures are depicted as white. They weren’t
all
white.”

Dad glanced at me and laughed, shaking his head. “Don’t let your grandma hear you say that.”

He was right. Grandma was very strict on the way things happened in the Bible, history and science be damned.

We both chuckled until realizing at the same time that Grandma wouldn’t hear me say that because Grandma was probably dead. My mom’s mom was always serious about religion and church, and she’d tend to give Mom a hard time about everything. It just hit me that I’d probably never see her or Meme again. I might not see Chloe again. That freak-out that Dad and I had just discussed didn’t seem so far away.

That was, until a sound from below had us scrambling over bodies on the floor to the already open window.

“I bet this is the window Connor came in and out of when they were here,” I said, climbing out.

I looked down, seeing the AC unit. The infected were following each other to the back of the church, and there were more than before. When the moaning began, it was almost as if they were calling each other, signaling that there was food.

“We can make it, but we have to hurry,” Dad said before jumping down.

He reached up for me, and I jumped down, too. We climbed down the unit together and ran across the street, retracing the route we’d taken to the church so that we wouldn’t lead any infected to the house.

When we got to the school, I rested my hands on my knees. Dad kept an eye out while we caught our breath.

“My pack is heavier. I didn’t account for that,” I said. “If we end up on foot to Red Hill, we’ll have to pack light.”

“If we can get to Shallot, we can spend one night, leave there in the morning and make to Red Hill by evening. I hope. I’m not sure.”

“So, we’re going?” I asked.

At the same time, a low moan sounded behind me, and something lunged at Dad from around the corner. I didn’t look. I just swung my bat at what I thought to be at head level. It wasn’t like the video games or television shows. I hadn’t seen it coming. No scary music had built the suspense or indicated foreshadowing.

I could hear Dad struggling behind me, but all I could think about was the mouth belonging to the infected coming at me and keeping it away from my skin. The adrenaline made everything both sharp and blurry. In one moment, I was next to its bloodstained clothes and dry, scratchy skin, and the next, it was standing in front of me, reaching out again. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d gotten away.

He was tall. I couldn’t kick his knees out from under him, so I swung the bat as hard as I could. That wasn’t like the video game either. The vibration from the impact traveled up the bat and into my arms, startling me, but the creature fell, and I swung at his head. The bat met his skull with a crack, but I didn’t stop until the bone gave way.

Dad grabbed my collar, and we ran south—away from the school, away from the house. The groans from the infected had attracted more.

“We’ve got to lead them away from the house!” Dad said. “This way!”

We sprinted through backyards, hopped over fences, and dodged plastic pools and swing sets until we made a full circle, sneaking into April’s backyard once we were sure it was clear.

“Oh,” I said, noticing Dad was covered in dark goo.

“I panicked,” he said. “I was trying to get him off me, so I could help you.”

“I held my own,” I said.

“I noticed. You weren’t bit?” he asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You?”

Until that moment, I hadn’t been truly afraid. I hadn’t realized that something as simple as a bite could take Dad away from me. He would die, and Halle and I would be on our own.

He pulled open the back door of April’s house, and once it was closed behind us, he hugged me, and I sobbed into his chest.

TAVIA FANNED TOBIN
, who was playing quietly on the floor. She had already tried to turn on the television in hopes that basic cable might have the smallest bit of news, but every channel was snow.

We had been at April’s for nearly a month. Almost a week after we had fled Anderson, we had been putting together a puzzle on the floor when we heard a loud boom, and the house had even shaken a bit. Dad had run outside, afraid the military were bombing the cities, but all we had seen was a thick black pillar of smoke.

After that, aside from that, life had consisted of trying to keep the kids quiet when an infected wandered close and fighting boredom. Dad had been trying to convince April and Tavia to help him clear out the school, so we could move there, but they were afraid the effort and risk wouldn’t be worth it. April had argued that there were too many windows to secure. After they had returned from a scouting trip, Tavia had reasoned that the three of them would quickly be overtaken by the number of infected children and the few adults who were still inside—and she didn’t think she could bring herself to kill them, no matter how desperate we were for shelter, and despite the many times Dad and I tried to convince her that they were already dead.

Neither of them knew that Dad was trying to help them find something more secure if we couldn’t find a vehicle for everyone—and we hadn’t yet.

Summer was in full swing. By mid-morning, we would be sweating. By some miracle, we still had electricity, but April was afraid to turn on the air conditioning. She was worried that when the outside unit kicked on, the noise would draw the infected. She was right, but with no air conditioning and no open windows, the house had become stuffier with each passing day. Dad had scavenged several box fans and a single tall oscillating fan, which helped with the heat.

The younger kids were becoming depressed, getting turned down every time they’d beg to go outside and play. We were all afraid their giggling and screams would attract the infected, and if we took the kids away from the house, we would get into trouble and be too far from safety. Dad and I would try to bring back a new toy every time we went out to keep the kids busy and happy.

I was more worried about the food situation. April’s once-packed pantry was looking sparse. The adults had talked about rationing. Dad and I would rummage through the houses in the tiny town every day. We only had a few houses left to search, and a lot of the food we found had spoiled.

“Are you going out today?” Connor asked, watching me fold towels with a bored look on his face.

“For food? I don’t know,” I said. “Dad hasn’t mentioned it.”

“I’ve gotta get out of this house. I want to go with you next time.”

I looked over at Dad, who was sitting on the floor with April, Nora, and Tobin. Jud was walking around them, patting their heads, while calling each of them a duck.

“Goose!” Jud said when he patted Dad’s head.

Dad scrambled up and tried to catch him before Jud got to his spot, but Dad wasn’t trying very hard.

Tavia was napping in the recliner, in and out of consciousness.

“It’s dangerous, Connor. It’s not an errand.”

“I know. I was thinking maybe…that maybe your dad would teach me how to shoot a gun.”

I snorted. “He won’t even teach me.”

“Maybe he should.”

I stopped folding towels and watched as Dad tapped April on the head and called her a goose. They ran around the circle as the kids laughed hysterically.

“I’ll talk to him,” I said.

“Good.” Connor went back to his window, watching the world go on without us.

April clapped once and stood, directing all the kids to the bathrooms to get ready for bed.

Within the hour, the candles were blown out, and the kids were tucked in. I sat next to Halle while she lay in bed next to Tobin.

“Do you remember how we used to find songs on the radio when Mom picked us up after school, and we would sing them really loud?” I asked. “Mom would roll down the windows and sing with us, and people would look at us like we were crazy.”

Halle giggled. “And we would bounce our heads and dance! That was fun. I miss school.”

“Me, too,” I said. Mostly, I just missed Chloe.

I waited for Dad to kiss her good night, and then I followed him into April’s bedroom.

She was taking a shower. We were alone.

“Connor made a good point today,” I said, watching Dad turn down the covers.

“About what?” He had a smirk on his face. He already knew I had an agenda.

“He mentioned you taking us out and teaching us how to shoot.”

Dad’s face twisted into confusion, like I’d just spoken a foreign language. Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t that.

“It’s a reasonable point. If you’re taking me out with you, I need to know how to use a gun—not just to defend myself, but to also keep from shooting anyone I don’t want to shoot.”

“No, Jenna. You’re not old enough.”

“I’m old enough to go out scavenging with you. I took out that zombie a couple of days ago.”

“That was your second one.”

“So? What does that have to do with learning how to shoot?”

“It’s a gun,” he said, already getting flustered, “and you’re thirteen.”

“Why does it matter how old I am? Dead people are walking around outside.”

Dad glared at me. “You’re not ready.”

“
You’re
not ready.”

“No, I’m not.”

“That’s an emotional response, and emotion is irrelevant.”

“Says who?” he asked. “And stop talking like you’re a forty-year-old psychologist. It’s creeping me out.”

“Connor needs to learn, too.”

“He’s Halle’s age, Jenna! You think Halle could handle a gun? Or should?”

“You’re not listening. It’s been a month.”

“Not this again.”

“You said we were going to find Mom. You said, if we didn’t find a vehicle as of a week ago, we would leave. That was supposed to happen yesterday. Why are we still here?”

“Because we’re not ready. Your sister is not ready.”

“She’s waiting on us,” I said, a ball forming in my throat.

“You’re starting to sound like a CD on repeat, Jenna, and I’m getting really tired of the song.”

I rolled my eyes at his analogy. Nobody used CDs anymore.

“When we’re out there, I might need more than a baseball bat. What if something happens to you? You can’t always be there to protect us. You have to teach me how to protect Halle.”

Dad’s face flushed. “Enough, Jenna.”

“And Connor. If he’s going to be the man of the house once we leave, he needs to know how to use a gun.”