Forever Between (Between Life and Death Book 2) (2 page)

“Here, let me show you. It’s actually really interesting. All layered and nifty,” she says almost eagerly. Her hands move toward the shoulder of the deader, the knife flickering in the light.

I swear I’ll hurl if she does what I think she’s going to do. “Uh, I’d rather look at it in a book, Emily. Really.”

Emily stops just shy of her first cut and looks over her shoulder at me with a grimace. “Sorry. I, uh, forget sometimes that they were people.”

“Yeah, but they are former people who need their heads smashed in and I do need some training,” I say, trying to get things back on topic and turned away from any weird embarrassment.

The knife slides back into the sheath and the hammer back up and out. “Watch me,” she instructs, focused once more on the task at hand.

I nod and hug my arms to my chest.

She steps toward the next deader she’s already tied to the fence by looping wires around their necks. It’s been a few days since she did more than that, so we’ve got quite a collection lined up for disposal. Usually, she smashes them on the same day she catches them, but Jon’s had a little cold so we’ve been staying close to our home at the warehouse. He’s feeling better now and getting some sun while he naps just on the other side of the fence, nestled inside a big box we took from the furniture warehouse.

Emily jams her gloved hands into the pockets of the deader’s pants and fishes about, bringing out some change from one pocket, which she examines and then tosses onto the ground. From another pocket she pulls out something that makes her grin. When she holds it up, I see it’s a fire-starter, the good kind.

She grins and says, “And always check the pockets.”

She tosses the fire-starter at me and then cocks the hammer back over her shoulder. She gives it a dramatic little bounce. “And don’t swing the hammer back so far. You almost got yourself in the back with it.”

With that, she swings the hammer straight into the forehead of the deader, creating a smacking, crunching sound that turns my stomach. In one smooth motion, she lifts her wrist and pulls the hammer out of the hole she’s made. Then she demonstrates that same motion once more in the air, bits of deader dripping off the hammer head while she does. “And if you lift like this, you’re far less likely to get it stuck in the skull. Handy when they aren’t tied up.”

I’m barely holding in my gorge and I for sure can’t speak, so I settle for making a sound of agreement. It comes out sounding more like a gag, so Emily—hammer already lifted and ready for another blow—stops and turns to me.

I must be as green as I feel, because she makes an “aww, poor baby” face and drops the hammer. She steps away from the deader and gives me a one-armed hug, squeezing my shoulders as she does.

“I know this is hard. I hate to say it, but you’ll get used to it. It has to be done,” she says, her voice soothing and sweet.

Head bashing aside, Emily
is
sweet and nice. She’s probably the nicest person I’ve ever met aside from Sam. Of course, Sam wound up eating three of us and I’m only alive because I hid with Jon inside the mechanical closet in our apartment for three days. That makes my judgment of who is nice and who isn’t somewhat suspect.

Nice or not, she’s right. I’ve not had to deal with the deaders much on my own. My parents took care of me as much as they could and then, when they disappeared, I found Sam and hid inside a loft apartment, letting him take the risks while I looked after the other kids. But I have to learn now. It’s just Emily, baby Jon and me. I’ve got to pull my weight.

“I’m okay. I promise. I just…just have to get used to it,” I say, and swallow back the scratchy feeling of rising vomit at the sight of the deader. It’s still moving, however sluggishly, and the glistening brain inside the wrinkly dead body is the ultimate in grossness.

“Good girl! That’s the spirit!” Emily says with more volume than is wise. She puts her finger to her lips in recognition of that, then reaches down to pick up the hammer again.

“Spirit, yeah,” I mutter. She doesn’t hear me.

“Okay, back to training. You see how wet that brain is? That’s the last thing to go with these guys. Once there’s not enough brain to have primitive instincts, the whole thing just collapses and stays down for good. It doesn’t die, per se, but it won’t go anywhere. To kill it for good, we’ve got to completely destroy the brain.” She hefts the hammer and demonstrates for me again the best way to destroy a brain.

I manage not to puke this time. It’s progress.

Today - Two for the Road

The kids are fully into insane-cooped-up mode when we get to the warehouse that we live in. Like Emily did before us, we all live in the offices on the upper observation deck because the metal stairs are awkward and loud, making them the best sort of alarm in case of a breach. The floor of the warehouse, which used to hold massive quantities of very strange food, is much clearer now. That’s not good because it means the food is slowly running out, but it does make for a nice play area.

Jon, who is probably four by now—I have no way of knowing for sure exactly when his birthday is since I lost track of the calendar—and Maribelle, who is a very bossy six, are running around and smacking each other. They call it tag. I call it frustration at being indoors so much. Savannah is watching them from her perch on some re-purposed crates, her face the very picture of resigned patience.

When she sees us, she tosses down the clothing she’s mending and calls out for the kids to keep it down.

“Well?” she demands as she marches up to us.

I don’t take this personally. It’s just her way. Savannah is older than all of us, but she isn’t in charge and I think she feels conflicted about it. She could be in charge, have more input into decisions, but she avoids it. Then she’s snappy when she doesn’t like the decisions. She came here with Charlie. I get the feeling that for the two years they were together before we found them, she was in charge, their lives depending on her every decision. So, I think she’s just done making decisions. As in,
done
.

Charlie sends a quick look my direction, then says, “We’re going.”

An almost explosive sigh comes out of Savannah, but she doesn’t launch into another tirade about how stupid we are. Instead, she follows the sigh with a deeply indrawn breath and closes her eyes tightly for a moment, as if gathering patience from some deep—and almost drained—well. When she opens them again, she gives each of us a hard look. “You’re sure about this? I mean, she’s pretty far gone. This isn’t likely to work. You two do realize that, right?”

I nod, because that’s what’s expected, but not because I believe it. I do think it will work, or that it’s at least
possible
that it will work. Emily’s tumor is what killed her and her heart stopped for just over thirty seconds. She’s not like Sam—verbal like he was—because of the tumor pressing on her brain, not because of the short time she was dead. I can see her in there sometimes, flashes of who she was behind her one working eye. And I’m sure I’ve caught a word from her at least once. It was my name, or I think it was. If it will work for anyone, it will work for her. Still, they expect me to agree, so I do.

Savannah is an eye-roller of such exquisite skill that she should go professional, and she sends one of her best my way. She looks off toward the kids, her mouth twisted into a dramatically overdone expression of exasperation. Charlie and I share another quick glance and he crosses his eyes, forcing me to suppress a grin, which would not be helpful at this moment.

She catches the move, gives us a dirty look, and says, “This isn’t a game, you two.”

Before she can launch into a lecture about responsibility, about risking what we have here in this oasis of life or start talking about taking a shovel to Emily’s head again, I hold up my palm toward her and say, “No games. I’m going. Even if I have to go alone, I’m going. She would do the same for any of us. No one is asking you or the others to go. The kids need protecting. I know that.”

Charlie starts nodding while I’m talking, at first tentative and then with more confidence. Emily scooped the two of them up while they were trapped inside the back room of a long-since-looted liquor store, the crowd of deaders all around the front of the building a dead giveaway that there was something alive inside. It might have been a deer or a cat—most of the time it’s something like that—but she had patiently taken care of that crowd, dozens strong and stinking to high heaven, just to be sure. Even if Savannah seems to have forgotten that, Charlie hasn’t. I take courage from that wordless support.

“And, we have to know if it works. That’s the true bottom line. Things aren’t going to get better unless we figure out a way to break the stand-off. Maybe we can find more information there than we can imagine now. I mean, they made the stinking nanites at that hospital in the first place. Or, at least some kinds of nanites,” I say, trying to convince her yet again.

I’m not even blowing smoke up her skinny rear end. What I’m saying is the truth. We’re not the only ones who’ve achieved something like homeostasis. So have the in-betweeners and the deaders that roam the world. The difference is that they have free reign over the outside, while we take our lives into our hands every single time we pass outside our fence.

Where we’re going—where I want to go—is the hospital where Emily was cured the first two times her cancer appeared. In the two years since she rescued me I’ve learned a lot from her. Once her headaches got constant and one side of her body began to grow clumsy, she had to tell me about her tumor returning for a third round of fun and games. I know what to look for and I want to go before she’s been an in-betweener too long.

I’m reaching. I know this. It doesn’t matter.

Savannah blows out another exasperated breath and does it with so much force the two kids stop their chattering and running. Jon looks guiltily in our direction and Maribelle plants her hands on her hips, both of them clearly thinking that she’s doing it in response to their raucous play. It only takes a second for them to see that we’re the targets of her ire instead of them and they return to their full-speed smack-fest.

“I can’t talk you out of it, so I’m going to stop trying. But I want you two to listen to me.” She shakes her finger at us as if she’s a mom instead of a former college student. “You are one half of the work force. That leaves just two people to work the gardens and keep watch since one of us has to watch the kids. If anything happens to you, you’ll be putting those kids in a bad spot. Remember that. Don’t take any risks you don’t have to.” Her pointing finger shifts toward the kids, at play and unconcerned, so we get the full dose of guilt.

It works. Charlie and I look at each other and I’m careful to give him no sign of my thoughts. I’m giving him a chance to change his mind. He returns an almost imperceptible nod so I know we’re good. Guilt or no guilt, we’re going.

He grabs Savannah’s still outstretched finger and pushes it downward, pulling her into a hug at the same time. They are close, as close as Emily and I were. I suppose I’m a little jealous that I no longer have anyone to hug me like that. I miss the way Emily used to hug me—tossing one arm around my shoulders and squeezing me close—at the slightest provocation or just because she knew I needed it. I shake that thought off because it’s depressing when I consider that we were just discussing that she looked “juicy” a few minutes ago.

Savannah doesn’t say anything else when he lets her go. Instead, she waves us away as if we’re bothering her and goes back to her crates and her endless mending. I can tell she’s choked up by the stiffness of her strides and the squareness of her shoulders.

I tap Charlie’s shoulder and whisper, “Let’s get ready.”

He starts a little and I’d swear the rims of his eyes are going red, but I don’t indulge in any teasing despite the invitation that offers. His complaints over Savannah’s bossiness are a daily ritual, like washing behind his ears. They pretend that they annoy each other, but they’ve been together since shortly after it all went to hell, with a group others at first, but eventually on their own. So, yeah, I know they care for each other deeply.

I was thirteen when the world changed, Charlie was fourteen. I had Sam for two years and then Emily for two more. I loved them both. Scratch that. I still love them. I know Charlie must feel the same about Savannah, no matter how much they squabble.

He coughs as a cover, but his voice is husky when he says, “Yeah. No time like the present.”

It’s a nice morning, a little cloudy, but the air is sweet and mild, with just enough wind to cover the noise of careful footsteps. It’s the kind of morning that’s usually perfect for scavenging. The furniture warehouse is where we’ve collected what we’ll need for this endeavor, so we head that direction.

Matt and Gregory are already out in the fields and will be until lunch. They aren’t really fields, but they function as such now. The green spaces required by the laws of our earlier, ordered world have been repurposed to a much better use than lawns. The long, wide strip of grass at the back of the complex is for the more obvious veggies, the kind that show what they are like tomatoes and eggplant. The front spaces, or at least the parts of it that are well away from the fence and the road, are for the less obvious ones. Out front there are no rows or neat lines, just potato plants, parsnips, carrots, and other stuff that won’t advertise what they are. That’s to keep things less tempting looking in case someone happens by. They are planted in clumps all over so they look as natural as possible, but it does make for more work in the tending.

We don’t exactly make a point of it, but both of us hurry our steps past the gaps between the buildings so the guys won’t see us. Matt and Gregory are an interesting pair. They’re brothers, but they seem to be nursing some grudge between them that makes them almost completely ignore each other.

They work in the fields, do their share of chores, and behave in perfectly personable ways with the rest of us, but it almost seems like they look through the space the other occupies unless otherwise required. Even now, one works the back field while the other works in the front, each avoiding proximity to the other. For now that works, since it does allow someone to watch both sides of the complex, but still, their avoidance of each other can be a pain at times. I did try to ask about it once, but Matt shut me down in a way that made it clear I should never ask again.