Dying To Live & Fighting To Live-Book One and Book Two (Zombie Overload Series) (19 page)

Jake has settled
into the front seat and has taken the wet towel, scrubbing more of
the gunk off him. I look at Jake and ask him what we're going to do
now. We need weapons, especially if we are going to get my ma out
safely. Darling isn't a huge town but it isn't a small one like Mesa,
either. And look what happened there!

"We're going to
stop in Lymon. It's on the way and there's an armory there." He
says distractedly, as he scrubs at his arm. He looks at me and his
hand freezes mid-motion. I turn and look his way and notice he's
staring hard at my face.

"Whats wrong?"
I ask him, starting to panic.

He makes a sound
like a low growl then asks me in a slow drawn out way, "What the
hell happened to your face?"

Honestly, I'd
forgotten about my face. I mean, the injuries anyway. Too tired to
feel the pain, well, I
was
until he was sweet enough to bring
it up. I tell him everything that happened between my stepping inside
the pharmacy up to when I stepped back out. He swears under his
breath. He looks angry as hell, though, and I wonder if he's angry at
me. So I ask him.

He scoots closer to
me and tells me no, he's not angry at me.

"Sit forward a
little. Let me look at the back of your head." He moves his hand
through my thick hair, trying to get to the scalp. His hand catches
on a tangle which just happens to be connected to the painful part of
my head. I jerk away instinctively, and am rewarded with that same
tangle catching on his hand once again. I cry out in pain and Jake
carefully removes his hand. He tells me to pull over and when I do he
switches seats with me. Of course, us stopping has Mom calling but I
can't answer the phone, as each ring has me grabbing at my head. Jake
answers and tells her we just switched drivers and that everything is
fine. Finally, he hangs up and sits back, looking at me. I lean
forward in my seat and hold my throbbing head in my hands. My whole
body starts to shake with the pain.

I feel Jake's arms
come around me and he gently holds me for a few moments. He leans
away and I hear velcro ripping as he opens one of his pockets.
Pulling out a prescription bottle, he hands me a couple pills. I take
them and he hands me a bottle of water. After I get the pills down, I
drink about half the bottle without stopping. It tastes so good!
Realizing Jake has to be thirsty, too, I hand the rest to him.

"No. Go ahead
and finish it." He says, pushing it back at me.

"Drink it. You
need it, too, and I'm ok now." I push it back to him. He sighs
and takes it reluctantly, but the look of enjoyment after he finishes
it, gives him away. I smile, thinking how silly men can be. I sit
back in my seat and Jake pulls back on the road.

Finally back on the
highway, we head straight to Lymon. Taking the exit, we enter the
city. It's bigger than I thought it would be. Jake tells me a little
about the city when I mention I have never been here. Driven by, but
never been. He tells me how far it is to the armory as he makes his
way through zombies, abandoned vehicles, wrecked vehicles, and the
living, who are hell-bent on getting out. We make it to the armory
and he pulls up to a large gate much like the one at the armory in
Springfield. Will leans over the front seat, scaring the hell out of
us, and asks the question I'm wondering.

"How do you
plan to get in this one?" He had keys for the last one but
surely not for this one, too. Jake pulls out a set of keys from his
pocket and holds them up.
Ok
.
Apparently, I'm wrong.

"I have a set
of keys for four different armories. One in Springfield, one in
Nebraska, and two in Missouri. This time it's going to be a lot
different. Just like in Springfield, we keep twenty-five on duty at
all times. But, all these men should be here. With most of our ammo
gone, this could be fun." He tells Will to climb over the seat
and get ready to drive us through the gate. After Jake is out and
running to the gate, Will slides behind the wheel and puts it in
drive, ready to move when Jake tells him to.

He looks at me and
says, "I'm not sure I like his idea of fun."
Nah
.
Me
neither.
I sigh and lean back. I am so tired and now I'm
guaranteed to have to fight again.
Damn.

Will drives through
the gate when Jake waves us forward. We clear the gate and move to
the side, letting the others have room to move in. Once they're
clear, Jake closes the gate. I scoot over toward Will as I see Jake
running to the passenger-side of our truck. He jumps in just as
bullets sweep the side of the truck where he stood not two seconds
ago. In confusion, I look at Jake, who is looking for the shooter.
Yelling at Will to go, Will floors it and goes around the left side
of the building as Jake instructs him to. Jake tells Will to drive to
the large building in the back like the one we had stayed in before.
Will does and Jake jumps out of the truck again.

At the smaller
normal sized door next to the larger door, he unlocks it and throws
the door open, then flattens himself against the outer wall. He leans
his head in a few times and quickly pulls it back. He pulls the knife
from his fatigues and waits. Soon, we see an undead silhouetted in
the doorway. Jake swings his arm up and plants the knife deep in the
zombies head. No sooner does he rip the knife back out, another fills
the doorway. Jake takes that one down and two more are at the door.
My breath catches, knowing he can't do this alone. Apparently, I'm
not the only one who thinks so as Will flings his door open and jumps
out, knife in hand. Then a blur of movement in my peripheral vision
catches my attention and I turn back to see dad with his handgun. I
wonder how many bullets he has left but I'm grateful for even just
one.

Will takes down one
of them while Dad shoots the second one, which was just about on top
of Jake as he struggles to remove the knife from his last kill. Ash
leans over the seat next to me and watches. Two days ago, I never
would have allowed him to watch something like this. Now, it's kind
of hard not to. Besides, maybe watching how to kill them will save
his life at some point.
Mother Of The Year, I am not.
But
whose kids are still alive?
I stick my tongue out at all those
judgmental idiots and Ash leans over even more and looks at me with a
'what the hell is wrong with you' expression. I just give him a
smile/grimace and turn back to the men who are still fighting off the
undead. Berating myself for the mental conversations I always seem to
have that end with spoken words or actions that have me looking
really crazy.

Finally, the zombies
stop coming out and the guys go inside. The large door opens and,
after I move to the driver's seat, the rest of us drive through. The
men drag the corpses outside. Once the men are back inside, Jake
closes both doors and engages the security bolts. He, Will, and my
dad search the rest of the building. We wait until they give the
all-clear, and then the rest of us get out. Stretching feels so good,
yet, oh-so-painful!

I get Grace out of
her carseat and walk around holding her for awhile. She's such a good
baby. Rarely crying at all and usually when she does, guns are
blasting around her. Who wouldn't? I see Kaleb running around the big
room with Ash, and Bo is following the men around. For the first
time, I really think about Grace and Kaleb's situation. Are their
parents still alive? And if so, they must be devastated thinking
their babies are dead. I know how I would feel, but, what am I
supposed to do? I don't have a cell number for them that I can try. I
don't even know their names!

Sighing, I hold the
baby a little tighter and kiss her soft cheek. She gurgles at me and
I smile. I take her back to the truck, change her diaper, and feed
her. She falls asleep before I can even burp her, but remembering the
belly aches my boys always got if I didn't burp them, I burp her
anyway. She lets out a huge belch right in my ear. I laugh at her,
then rock her until she falls back asleep. Placing her back in her
carseat, I leave all the doors open so we can hear her and she can
get some air.

The men start
walking toward me. Dad, Will, Jake, and Sam. I look around for Greg,
and Jake knows what I'm thinking.

"He's upstairs
in a room. He's really tired. I gave him his meds and, hopefully,
he'll sleep soon." I nod at him. It pains me to see the hurt in
his eyes. He coughs and turns his head for a moment, obviously trying
to keep his emotions in check. Finally, he turns back to me.

"You and I are
going to clear the armory like we did at the last one. You ok with
that?" Not really, but he doesn’t seem to be giving me a
choice. So I just gulp and nod. "When we get it cleared, we are
going to load the guns like last time, then come back and get
everyone ready. We will go get your grandmother and then come back
here to get some sleep. Sound good?" All the men wait for my
answer.
What the hell?
They never cared what I thought before!
So I just nod.

He then tells us we
need to go through each vehicle and look for weapons that have ammo
in them and get all the other ammo we can find. We do and bring what
we've found back. What we have isn't much for our group, but for Jake
and I, we should be ok. We have plenty of handgun ammo which is the
weapon Jake wants me to use. I'm happy with that. He takes the
automatic, which doesn’t have a lot of ammo but he also has his
handgun and can use his knife if he needs to. We leave everyone with
a full clip in their handguns, just in case.

I race up the stairs
to find a bathroom before we leave. When I finish, I flush the toilet
and as I'm washing my hands, I glance in the mirror. I suck in a
sharp breath and lean toward the mirror. Unbelievable. My face is a
mess! I grab a soft washcloth folded on a shelf, soak it in warm
water, and gently wash off the caked-on blood, dirt, and god only
knows what else. I have serious dried blood on, and in, my nose. That
hurt like hell to remove. (The blood. Not my nose.) After all the
blood is gone, I inspect the damage. Black eye? Check. Bruising on my
neck? Check. Scrapes and scratches on my forehead? Check. Huge bruise
in the shape of a hand on my cheek? Check. Swollen, bruised nose?
Check. Check. I sigh and throw the rag in the trash. Lifting my shirt
and turning around, I look at my back as best I can. One huge bruise.
Nice. Dropping my shirt and turning back to the mirror, I bring my
hand up to my head and softly touch the huge knot. Even though I was
gentle and barely even touching it, every time I did, my eyes wanted
to roll back in my head and I felt like I was going to pass out. I
turn the faucet back on and cup my hand under the cold water. Filling
my mouth, I swish it around and spit. Blood. Big surprise. I keep
doing it until the metallic taste and the red and pink spit is gone.
Finally, I open the door.

Standing in the
hall, I hear strange noises from one of the upstairs rooms. Pulling
my gun out, I follow the sounds. I stop at one of the doors and press
my ear against it, listening. It sounds like it's on the other side
of the room, so I ease the door open. Looking in, all I see is a
large table. I move slowly toward it and can see something on the
floor on the other side of the table. I kneel down to try to see the
other side better, but chairs are blocking my view on that side. I
can see the fabric of clothes and movement, but that's it. I get on
my hands and knees and crawl down the left side of the table, keeping
my eyes on whatever it is. Finally, I reach the corner of the table
and peek around the leg.

I let out my breath
in a big sigh of relief which quickly turns to concern as Jake's
brother heaves a few more times into the trashcan. He's half laying,
half-sitting on the floor. He looks horrible. Poor guy. I crawl over
to him and ask him if there is anything I can do. He asks for water.
I stand and go to the mini-fridge on the right side of the room.
Opening it, I find a bottle of water and take it out. I see a box of
straws sitting on a small counter above the fridge and grab one of
those, too. Taking them back to Greg, I hold the bottle as he sips
the water. Noticing these rooms have their own private showers and
toilets, I go and wet a washrag for him. Coming back, I sit behind
him and gently pull him back so he can relax against me while I wash
his face. Then I fold the rag, so the clean side is on the outside,
and hold it on his forehead.

Greg starts talking
and I just listen. He tells me about when he and Jake where younger
and how great a big brother Jake always was. How his having cancer
almost destroyed Jake. He starts crying and I hold him a little
tighter. Even though it was really barely tight at all, I was still
afraid I would crush his ribs. He's so thin. So delicate. My heart
aches for him. For Jake.

Soon I feel his body
start to relax and grow heavier against me. I try and figure out how
I'm going to get him up off the floor without hurting him and how I'm
going to get up at all with him against me and the couch at my back.
I hear the door open and watch as black military boots make their way
around the table. Finally, Jake's head comes into view and his face
softens when he sees us. He comes over and sinks to the floor next to
us. He looks so tired. I smile at him and he smiles back. He asks me
if his brother's ok and I tell him what happened. He nods and leans
over, picking his brother up and placing him on the couch. I cover
him with a blanket and then Jake and I just stand there and watch the
blanket move as his chest expands. Not a lot of movement, but it's
there. I grab Jake's hand and give it a tight squeeze then turn and
leave the room to let him have some time alone with his brother.