Love in the Time of the Dead (5 page)

BOOK: Love in the Time of the Dead
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With her heart hammering into her throat, she jumped but landed farther away from the rescue vehicles than she had intended. The man in the Hummer screamed at her, but she couldn’t make out a single word he was saying over the rushing sound in her ears. She had fallen hard and rolled to the side, and when she came up, the machete was already poised. Not her weapon of choice, but it would be efficient enough. She spun and sliced, and when the huge blade found itself stuck in a Dead, she pulled out the next knife, spinning low to avoid being grabbed. So many Deads were closing in on her that progress toward the Hummer slowed to a halt. She turned to hit a Dead on the side of his face with a hidden blade in the butt of her rifle when she stopped suddenly, barely avoiding a direct hit to a set of the most vivid and angry blue eyes she’d ever seen.

“This way!” the man yelled.

The massive truck was close, and had been inching closer under the weight of the bodies that had thrown themselves on top of it. The man shoved a hand gun into her palm, and she took out the closest attackers while he unloaded clips into the crowd to clear a path.

The man yanked her through the door and slammed it behind them, clipping off a few Dead digits that held on to the door frame stubbornly. The driver hit the gas immediately while her rescuer pushed her roughly into the back seat where Jarren had been waiting. Jarren pulled her to him and hugged her until she couldn’t breathe.

“Where is Reynolds?” the man in the passenger seat asked as he looked around.

“Didn’t make it, sir,” came the sullen reply.

“What do you mean he didn’t make it? He was just here. Go back!”

The driver shook his head. “Sir, I saw them get him. He’s gone.”

The man with the blue eyes cursed and threw his helmet hard onto the console. He hadn’t purposefully thrown it at Laney, but the helmet ricocheted off the plastic and flew up to cut her across the temple.

She didn’t expect the sudden pain and gasped in shock.

“What the hell, man?” Jarren mumbled and pulled her back to get a look at the gash.

The passenger’s unapologetic eyes found hers. “Reynolds was a good man and he’s dead now because of you. You better be worth it.”

“She is,” Jarren said quietly.

The Hummer jerked and strained for every foot of ground. Laney had no idea if Mitchell and Guist had made it, or where their Hummer was in relation to theirs. Rotting corpses blocked all views outside of the tinted windows.

A box toppled on top of her at a sharp jerk of the truck, spilling tin cans and bottled waters. So the men hadn’t come from the colony gates. They must have happened upon them while they were heading back from a supply run. She frowned thoughtfully at the man in the passenger seat. He was giving hushed instructions, void of hesitation or fear. Every so often he would turn his head just enough for her to get another look at his breathtakingly blue eyes. She had never seen eyes more pure, furious, animated, or glorious. She found her gaze transfixed on a thin scar that ran from his hairline down the side of his jaw. It added to his mystery. He had a masculine profile and straight nose. His jawline was chiseled, and his high cheekbones added a feline quality to his eyes, which slanted at an angle ever so slightly. Not the
here kitty, kitty
kind of feline quality, but the
lion that ate the ringmaster
kind. His brown hair was cropped short, and the darker color played up the intense blue in his eyes. Before the end of the world, he was exactly the type of guy who would have ignored her completely in school. Current times found her not easily intimidated by anybody. Still, the man inspired awe.

A glint of gold caught her eye. How disappointing. He was married. Of course he was married! A man like him probably had every eligible female falling at his feet. Look at her. He had probably just given her a concussion, didn’t care in the least, and she was still spontaneously ovulating for him.

A concussion. That had to be it because men didn’t affect her like that. She shook her head to rid herself of the last of the dizziness. Her cheeks flushed with angry heat at her curiosity about such a rude and brash man. Shock was the only explanation for the fluttering in her stomach.

“You okay?” Jarren asked with a worried look.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just shocked we’re still breathing,” she lied.

The man with the blue eyes pulled a walkie talkie up to his lips. “We’re at the first gate,” he said into it.

If she looked directly through a small opening created by an armpit and a shinbone of two Deads, a tiny window of sight was created. Laney strained her eyes. A huge cinder-block wall that stretched as far as she could see towered toward the sky. The gate in front of them was made of heavy layers of wood and was lifting slowly to reveal an opening for them to pass through.

“Are we bringing the Deads in with us?” Jarren asked in alarm as they inched through the entrance to the colony.

He didn’t receive an answer, but he did get a very dirty look from the man with the radio.

When they were through the imposing gate, they were met with another wall identical to the one behind them. The Hummer turned and the driver hit the gas and raced alongside the wall. Her stomach lurched, and she dug her fingers into the seat cushion like a startled cat. The bulk of Deads that still held onto their vehicle lost their grip under the speed and fell off. The rattle of gunfire sounded all around them, and the corpses started to fall. The other Hummer pulled up at the rear, and the gate to the colony slammed closed, squishing several Deads in its wake. Another huge door on the inside wall appeared some three hundred yards later and the Hummer stopped, idling. They waited.

“What happens now?” Jarren asked after a few minutes of stillness.

The man in the passenger seat continued to ignore them, but the driver spoke up. “Every Dead has to be killed and removed before we can open the next gate. Can’t take any chances.”

She got that. All it took was one missed Dead to kill off an entire colony.

One uncomfortable and impossibly quiet hour later, the second gate finally opened for them. She had wanted to ask what they did with all of the Deads’ bodies, but the annoyed look on the blue-eyed man’s face had kept her curiosity silent.

The open door revealed yet another wall, and the Hummers pulled in and stopped.

“Get out,” her rescuer demanded curtly.

Mitchell and Guist exited the Hummer behind them, and an intangible weight lifted from her shoulders. A group of heavily armed men descended upon them and searched the undercarriages of the Hummers immediately. Laney and Jarren were pinned against the wall, and after a shocked moment, Mitchell and Guist received similar treatment. The rescue team from the Hummers removed articles of their clothing, and Laney’s rescuer glared at her team with annoyance written on every one of his features.

“Take your clothes off,” he barked.

Panic rose in her throat. “What?”

He sighed in obvious frustration. “Have to check for bites. You don’t get through that last gate until we make sure you aren’t turning Dead on us.”

“Surely you can cut her a break though,” Mitchell said in a dangerous tone. “She’s a woman. She shouldn’t have to strip down in front of everyone.”

She turned a panicked look on Jarren. What about the healing bite on her side? They’d kill her when they saw it.

The angry leader narrowed his eyes and stepped closer. He was stripped down to his cargo pants, and she tried to keep her gaze professionally on his face and not on his sculpted physique.

“Are you afraid we’ll want to look at your body? Is that the problem? Because if so I can assure you, you don’t have to flatter yourself. I think I can speak for all of the men here when I say we like our women softer. A little more…” He hesitated, as if he were searching for the right word. “Womanly,” he finished. “Take your clothes off.”

Burning heat crept into her cheeks. She had never been so embarrassed in all of her life. To make matters worse, all of these strange men were laughing cruelly at her, and the man she found so intimidatingly attractive had just hit squarely onto her biggest insecurity.

Jarren started toward the man with a dangerous look in his eyes, but she caught his arm and shook her head. It wouldn’t solve anything. She unbuckled her vest of weapons and shrugged out of it. Her team turned away and started undressing.

Turning her back to the waiting crowd of men, she faced the wall to finish removing her clothes. When her shirt was in the pile beside her, the men started murmuring to each other. It could have been the huge peacock tattoo that snaked from her shoulder blade to her opposite hip, the plume of bright green and blue feathers snaking around her hipbone that could have caused their reaction. More likely it was the crusty bandage that wrapped around her waist.

Vulnerable, Laney crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to cover up. She chose to focus on the grout between two cinder blocks in front of her face. The subtle click of a gun and cold metal that pushed through the gathered hair in the back of her head created the most terrifying sensation.

“What is this?” the blue-eyed man demanded.

His lips were so close she could feel his warm breath tickle the fine hairs on the back of her neck when he spoke.

“A tattoo.”

“Don’t be a smart ass. You know what I mean.”

Jarren stared at the cinder blocks beside her as if they held the answer they needed. Mitchell was resting his head on the wall, watching her with intense brown eyes. She could see the fear in them.

“I shot her,” Mitchell spoke up, never taking his eyes from hers.

The gun stayed its position on the back of her head. “Why would you shoot her?”

“It was an accident. It happened last week while we were fighting Deads.”

“Take the bandage off.”

Laney hesitated. She didn’t want to remove her arms from her chest.

“Do it!” the man yelled so loudly that she jumped.

Her lip trembled embarrassingly as she removed the bandage with shaking hands. The steady hum of murmured questions picked up again as she painfully pried the clingy bandage off the healing wound.

The man shoved her head into the cinder block wall with the barrel of the gun. The rough surface scraped painfully on the gash at her temple.

“Looks like a bite to me. In fact it looks
exactly
like a Dead bite. I’ve seen them a hundred times.”

Jarren jumped into action. “Wait, wait, wait! Think about it!” He held his hands up in surrender as he sidled closer to Laney. Ten guns trained on him instantly. “Look at all of the scabbing. Look at it! That wound is a week old and a quarter healed. She would be turned by now.”

“I’ve seen people stall before turning,” the man argued.

“But how long?”

“An hour.”

“Okay. We’ve been with you for well over an hour and she is still human.”

The man hesitated. Laney could almost hear him grinding his teeth. He loosened his grip and kneeled down to look closely at the wound. “What kind of gun?” he asked Mitchell.

Mitchell spoke up, void of hesitation. “Shotgun, sir.”

“I didn’t see a shotgun in your weapons pile.”

“Lost it, sir. Right after I shot her.”

“Shotgun seems inefficient for a fighter’s weapon. You have to reload too often.”

“It was my father’s, sir,” Mitchell lied smoothly. “Had sentimental value to me.”

“Must have been tragic to lose it then,” the man said sarcastically. His instincts were spot on. No doubt he smelled a rat but he was unable to argue with facts. And the fact was, she was still human, which should have been impossible if she had been bitten so long before.

“Put her in quarantine for a few hours to be safe. I want two guns on her at all times.”

She was allowed to dress again but was denied all of her weapons. They were led through the final gate and greeted with the chaos and jovial exclamations that came with a returning supply run team. How long had their rescuers been gone and how far had they been forced to travel to fill the Hummers?

She was flanked by two guards who dragged her unnecessarily to an outlying set of buildings. She stumbled, trying to get a better view of the homecoming. The happiness and relief that radiated from the masses was infectious, and she yearned for more of it like a drug. It seemed the blue-eyed man was very well-liked and his face transformed as he spoke to friends and received “welcome homes” and pats on the back. He went out of his way to greet every person and even stopped to ruffle the hair on a few little boys. The children positively glowed under his attention. His face only changed back to a mask of unhappiness when he came to one searching woman. He became serious, a blanket of sadness seeming to settle over him as he took her gently by the arm to find privacy. She must have been Reynolds’s woman.

Laney lost sight of them as she was led to a medical building. The biting sadness nagged at her. She didn’t have to imagine what the woman was going through as the men broke the news to her. She’d been through it before. Laney had survived, as the woman would, but she hadn’t wanted to.

A middle-aged man with glasses and a receding hairline greeted them. He was tall and skinny as a rail, but his easy smile, clear eyes, and relaxed nature screamed health and vitality.

BOOK: Love in the Time of the Dead
6.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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