Deathly Contagious (52 page)

“True. So either there are no survivors here or they are well hidden,” Wade rationalized.

“Sounds about right.”

I pulled myself up into the bed and got a bottle of water that had warmed up from being in the sun all day. I drank it nonetheless, even though warm water made me feel even thirstier for some reason.

“Everything come out ok?” Ivan asked me with a boyish grin.

“Better than I could have hoped,” I shot back, returning his youthful smile. I ripped open a protein bar and took a bite. It was supposed to taste like peanut butter but tasted like crap instead. I had to force myself to chew and swallow.

Brock joined us, looking wistfully at the landscape. His eyes held back an unspoken sadness as they gazed across the land. He was born and raised in Texas; it had to be both terrifying and welcoming to be back in the Lone Star state. 

Hayden and Rider were discussing something in hushed voices and stopped talking when they reached the truck. Hayden and I made eye contact; he smiled almost shyly and diverted his eyes to the ground.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at him quizzically. He glanced at the guys, set something down and hoped up in the truck to eat dinner.

“What are the plans for tonight?” Brock asked.

“If we can find a place to camp out, we will,” Hayden told him.

“And if not?”

“Sleep in the cars,” he answered grimly. We all hated sleeping in the vehicles. We ate quickly and looked at the map. “We’re only half an hour away from the camping store. Let’s go to that town and find a place for the night.”

“Sounds good,” Brock agreed. We hastily ate and packed up what we got out. Ivan, Wade, and Brock got into their SUV and Rider closed the door after he got into the cab of the truck. Hayden hung back, again acting shy.

“Riss,” he said and stood. “I have something for you. Don’t laugh, ok?”

“Uh, alright.” What in the world would he have for me?

He jumped out of the bed and held a hand out to help me down. I didn’t need his help at all but I slipped my fingers between his regardless. He picked something up that he had put on the truck’s dust covered back tire. Looking absolutely adorable, he shyly held out a bouquet of dandelions.

“It’s stupid, I know,” he muttered.

A smile broke across my face and I took the bundle of weeds. “No. It’s beautiful.”

He looked at me dubiously. “Really?”

“Ok, maybe not beautiful, but it’s thoughtful and sweet and…and thank you.”

He smiled and his hazel eyes looked deeply into mine. “You’re welcome. I like making you happy, and you’ve seemed sad lately.”

I resisted the desperate urge to jump on him, wrapping my arms and legs against his body. That would have to wait. Ignoring the warm, tingling I was feeling throughout my entire body, I smiled back and linked my fingers through his. He squeezed my hand before letting go.

I had never been overly sentimental. I didn’t keep cards or flowers; what was the point? I picked the best looking dandelion from the bunch and stuck it under the driver’s seat in the truck with the intention of drying and pressing it when we go home. We reached the outdoor sporting goods store at dusk. Three pathetic S3’s aimlessly limped around the parking lot. Wanting to try his hand with the bow and arrow, Rider asked me to walk him through using it.

“The crossbow is much easier,” I told him, eyeing its sleek black metal curved limb and the camo foregrip and stock. It had sat untouched since I took it from the camping store before Hayden had been shot.

“I don’t want easy,” he said and picked up my bow. “Someone once told me that the harder something is, the more it is worth it.” His blue eyes met mine and his lips curved into a small smile. “She is a smart woman.”

“I bet she is,” I told him, barely able to not smile.

“So come on and show me how to use this thing!” He took three arrows from the quiver.

I laughed. “You really think you’re gonna get them on your first try? Take the whole thing.” I motioned to the quiver. “You’ll need it.”

“Don’t bet on it. I might have beginner’s luck!”

“You’ve shot it before,” I reminded him. Fuller had made me teach a very brief course on how to use a bow and arrow. “So you’re not technically a beginner,” I teased. We walked a few yards from the cars. One of the gummies took notice and dragged its feet in our direction.

The skin on its face was literally dripping off. Stringy chunks of moist flesh hung off its cheeks and swung back and forth as it walked. Occasionally, one of the sticky strands would swing back and hit its neck where it would stick for a second before falling loose and flapping again.

I was unable to tell if it was a man or woman. Its clothes were soiled with mud, blood, and bodily fluids. It wasn’t wearing shoes, and its left arm had been gnawed at; all the meat was gone, leaving only yellowing, dead bone.

“Lower your shoulders,” I instructed. I kept one eye on Rider and the other on the approaching S3. I wasn’t worried about the other zombies; the guys knew we wanted to use them as target practice but wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if they got too close.

“Better?” Rider asked.

“Relax,” I told him. He didn’t put the arm guard on. It was a rather painful lesson to learn, but it had worked for me. “Let out your breath. Aim—you do this on your own so I can figure out what you’ve done right and wrong. Then let the arrow go.”

He did. The arrow soared through the air and grazed the S3 in the shoulder.

“Not too bad,” I told him, a proud smile forming. “You did better than I thought you would.”

He beamed. “See, I told you I rock.”

We laughed and Rider took another arrow. I stood behind him, watching him set up. The S3 was only a couple yards away; hardly a challenge. Rider let the arrow go, gasped when the string snapped against his skin, and reveled in his bull’s eye shot.

“Does it always do that?” he asked as he closed his fingers around the shaft of the arrow. It easily slid out of the S3’s rotten head. Putrid browning brain sloshed out of the cracked skull. “I wasn’t expecting it to hit my wrist.”

I nodded. “That’s why you wear an arm guard. And if you have long sleeves, it keeps your clothes from getting caught. It doesn’t always hit you, but when it does it stings like a bitch.”

“You’re telling me.” He flicked the nasty rotten slime from the arrow. “How is this thing still walking? Its brain is mush!”

“I wondered that too,” I said, leaning over to look at the gummy. “It makes no sense. Then again, none of this does.”

Rider nodded in agreement and we moved on to shoot the next S3. It took Rider five arrows to finally lodge one in the things throat, severing the spinal cord. He asked me to shoot the last one so he could watch and learn. I knew I wasn’t the best teacher. I moved slow and deliberately, hoping he could pick up on some hint I wasn’t able to verbalize.

“You make it look like a breeze,” he complained.

I shrugged. “I’ve been doing this for years. It’s second nature now. And I even miss sometimes. Rarely.” I smiled. Rider, Wade, and I checked out the front of the store while the others looked around back. It was too dark to go inside; that would have to wait until the morning.

The six of us meandered toward the dock on the lake. The water gently lapped the shore in a soporific rhythm. The purple and orange sunset reflected off the water’s glassy surface.

“I have an idea,” Brock said and walked briskly down the dock, his combat boots creating heavy footfalls that were muted by the water. He stopped and inspected the boats. “We should camp out in the boats. We could lengthen the ropes, drift a few feet farther from the dock and drop the anchor. We’d be untouchable.”

“That’s brilliant,” Hayden exclaimed. “Let’s get set up before nightfall.” We went back to our vehicles and got our sleeping bags, food, water, weapons, and flashlights.

“Do you two want your own boat?” Ivan leered, making an obscene jester with his hands and waist.

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh yea, baby. You know it.”

Hayden laughed and nudged me. “We could, you know.”

The amusement went out of my expression.

“Not
that
,” he recovered quickly. “I mean just have our own boat.”

“Oh, yea. I’d like that,” I agreed. We ended up splitting into twos. Hayden and I uncovered our boat of choice and tossed the inner tubes that were being stored inside to the dock. We put our stuff inside, untied the rope that tethered us to the dock, raised the anchor, and pushed off the slippery wood of the dock.

Hayden let the boat drift until there wasn’t any slack left in the rope before dropping the anchor. We were still attached to the dock and could pull ourselves back to it. I doubted a crazy would be able to rationalize doing that too.

   The boat had been stored with care but I was still slightly paranoid of waking up covered in spiders. Spiders beat blood thirsty—and organ hungry—zombies any day. Hayden zipped our sleeping bags together. I risked taking off my boots, unbraided my hair, and pulled the black tee shirt I was wearing off, leaving me in only jeans and a dark blue tank top.

Hayden did the same, stripping down to his pants but no shirt. Ivan and Brock took the first watch. We felt confident that we were unreachable out in our cleverly chosen boats but we were no fools. Taking advantage of the quiet calm, Hayden put his arm around me and kissed my neck. Shivers went down my spine, creating a new kind of desire when it hit me down there.

Giving in, I pressed myself against Hayden, feeling every hard part of his body fill with the same red hot want. We could be quiet, I was sure of it. Quiet and quick. But I wasn’t about to leave the guys unmanned if a bad situation suddenly came about. I imagined Hayden and me struggling to pull apart and get our pants on in time to aid our friends.

I gave Hayden one last kiss before turning over. Relentlessly, he ran his fingers over my body, finding their way under my shirt. The rough skin on his hands sent more shivers through me when they caressed my breasts.

With a heavy sigh, he stopped rubbing me. “We should sleep,” he mumbled.

“Yea. We won’t get another opportunity to feel safe at night until we’re home,” I speculated.

“Yup. Night.”  He started running his fingers over my exposed skin again but this time in a much less provocative way. It felt soothing and, along with the gently rocking of the boat in the water, helped me fall asleep.

The boat bumped against the dock, stirring us out of our restful sleep.

“Your turn,” Rider muttered. I sat up ruefully and put my hands over my face. With a sigh I pulled myself out of the sleeping bag. The day was already warm. In fact, I don’t think it ever cooled off completely. The twilit sky glistened on the horizon, promising another sky filled with hot, unfiltered sunshine.

I used to love days like this.

Hayden and I packed up our stuff, put it back in the truck and sat at the dock. He took apart his guns one by one to clean, all the while staying vigilant for the unwanted undead. I swished my arrows around in the water to clear off the dried zombie crust that had built up on the tips. Once I was satisfied, I did the same with my knife.

I carefully put my weapons away and leaned back on the sun warmed wood of the deck. The dry texture felt most uncomfortable against the dry skin of my hands. A nice shower and some lotion sounded heavenly right about now.

Having left my sunglasses in the truck, I closed my eyes and turned my face up to the bright us. Soon I was feeling sleepy again. Promising I’d only stay for a minute, I let myself lay down, placing my arms above my head.

“You’re doing an awesome job of keeping watch,” Hayden spoke.

“I’d hear them coming,” I retorted.

“Yea, and then you’d sit up and die.”

“Wouldn’t you save me?”

“If I could.” He sounded annoyed. I sat up, blinking in the sun. He shoved a magazine into an M4 and held it up, inspecting the accuracy of the scope. “I used to hate these,” he told me. “Sand got stuck in every crevice.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” I told him, my voice level.

“Nope,” he sighed and put the gun down. “Hungry?”

“Yea. Want me to find something?”

“I’ll get it; stay here.”

“Alright,” I said. Knowing that if I stayed on my ass I’d feel tried and lazy, I sprung to my feet and did a Sun Salutation. Feeling much better I walked to the end of the dock and looked out at the water. I could feel the vibrations of someone walking on the dock.

I spun around, expecting to see Hayden. A tall, blonde man stood in the center of the worn wood, staring at me. He cocked his head when I fluidly moved down dock to scoop up a weapon. Before I could even touch my bow, he took off, sprinting into the parking lot.

Dammit. Hayden was there, probably not paying attention to what was going on around him because he was counting on me to keep watch. He was probably in the bed of the truck, his back turned to the world while he found something for us to eat.

I put the bow around my shoulder, grabbed two arrows and took off. I wanted to shout his name in warning but whistled a sharp, short whistle instead. Hayden looked up just in time. He jumped out of the truck right as the crazy growled and lunged at him. Hayden ducked out of the way and the crazy smacked into the side of the truck.

Hayden raised his arm and brought down his fist on the side of the crazy’s head, striking him hard in the temple. The blow stunned the crazy; Hayden reached out his hands on Blondie’s head and twisted. Even from a few feet away, I heard the snap.

The body slumped to the ground. I jogged over.

“Where the hell did he come from?” Hayden asked, shoving the body away from the truck with his foot.

“I have no idea. I looked up and he was just there, watching me.”

“Shouldn’t they all be past this stage in the virus already?” He stepped over the body and leapt back into the truck. “Unless he just got infected.”

“No, I think he’s been infected,” I stated and knelt down to look at the body. “Toss me the gloves,” I asked.

Hayden opened the silver box and pulled out a pair of leather gloves. I put them on and rolled the body over. “He’s wearing thermals under his jeans. It’s been over eighty degrees in Arkansas for days now; I can only assume it’s been even warmer here.”