Relay for Life (8 page)

Matthew’s eyebrows went skyward. That was a surprise. A run kid would encounter more infected than most civilians. He figured it would be that.
Andrew sighed. “Same question to the both of you.”
“Don’t you want to claim your prize first?” Marcel, clearly wanting to get Andrew’s mind off the subject. The man was very protective over Andrew.
That’s love for you
. Not for the first time Matthew wondered what his place was with the two of them. He mentally shrugged. At the least, he would get some stress relieving sex with two beautiful men. If they threw him out of bed after that, well, that was life.
Andrew shook his head. “Nope. I’ll get my prize after. I want to hear the answers first.”
Matthew briefly considered giving a bullshit answer like spiders or something equally clichéd but rejected the idea quickly. Andrew had been honest, and it was clearly a subject that was slightly touchy. He deserved an honest answer from him.
Marcel beat him to the punch. “This is going to sound stupid, but I have always been scared of dying alone. I don’t have a very close family, but I always wanted one. If I’m going to go out, I want to be with people who love me.”
“Well, we’re all together now. No dying alone if we do,” Matthew said, reaching out and squeezing Marcel’s knee.
“How about you?” Marcel asked, covering Matthew’s hand where it rested on his leg.
“I think I’m most scared of losing my dad. We’re really close, and we both work in very high-mortality jobs. I think we both dread that phone call.” Matthew swallowed hard. “It’s not really a matter of if. It’s more of a matter of when I’ll get that call. My dad still thinks he’s a twenty-year-old recruit.” He gave a shaky laugh. “I wanted to play this game to relieve a little of the seriousness in the situation. I apparently suck at it.”
“I’ll relieve some tension,” Andrew cut in. “I get my prize now.”
“Oh yeah?” Marcel asked. “What’s your prize, Andy?”
“I want you two to kiss. Marcel, straddle his lap and make him forget he’s worried.” Andrew’s confidence in them was growing in exponential leaps and bounds. It was really hot. He wasn’t sure where the timid run kid had gone, but Matthew was glad he felt comfortable enough to be confident with them now. Marcel did as he bid without question, sliding onto Matthew’s lap without a word.
“How about that kiss?” Matthew asked as Marcel’s hard buttock settled on his groin. Marcel chuckled and claimed his lips in a kiss.

They slept in shifts on the blankets they laid down under the tent. As much as Matthew had wanted to bed down with them and stay cuddled in the pile they’d been in the night before, he knew he couldn’t. There were too many dangers surrounding them and too many unknown factors to allow his focus to lag for too long. He’d slept a few hours with Andrew, and then Marcel had awakened him to take the second shift.

The sun was just painting the morning sky lovely shades of orange and pink when he shook Marcel’s shoulder to wake him up. The wildlife was just starting to stir. The birds in particular seemed to be eager to greet the day. It was very peaceful, almost deceptively. The surrounding forest was thick with zombies, Necros, and, somewhere, a super infected called a Necro King.

Marcel blinked up at him, and Matthew couldn’t help but notice his beautiful brown eyes framed in those dark lashes. He truly was a beautiful man. “Hey,” Matthew greeted. He sounded a little breathless to his ears.

He nodded. “Yep. We’ve got a hell of a hike out of here. I called Daniel. The pickup is fifteen miles north of here. They have a small base of operations set up at the farthest the UMF is allowing civilians. If we can get to the decontamination line, we’ll be golden. We just have to get that far.”

“Before nightfall?” Marcel asked, sitting up. “That’s going to push it.”
Andrew stirred on his other side, slowly coming awake. “Whas goin’ on?” he slurred, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.
“Time to get up, baby,” Matthew said, smiling down at the run kid.
Andrew nodded groggily. Out of the three of them, he’d gotten the most sleep but seemed to be the most tired. “Oh. All right.” He rubbed his eyes again. “Water?”
“Yeah, sweets. I’ve got some water for you. The protein bars should help your energy level.” Matthew tapped Marcel on the shoulder with one of the bars. “One for you, too.”
Marcel took the bar. “Thanks.”
“You two eat, and I’ll start packing up.” Matthew tossed Andrew the other bar and straightened. The two men looked at one another and shared a silent communication before looking at Matthew again. “What?” he asked.
They reached for him in unison and pulled him down between them. Andrew kissed him first, a sweet good morning that warmed his insides. Then Marcel pulled him in his direction and kissed his lips. There was a little rougher edge to his kisses than Andrew’s. It was the perfect balance. He untangled himself from their combined embrace with a laugh.
“Both of you are trouble.” He liked trouble. He pushed himself to his feet and went to pack up their things.

Andrew was relaxed. It may have seemed insane to relax in a situation like the one he was in now, but there was something incredibly comforting about walking beside the two hunky field agents in the middle of an infected zone. The fact that they both wanted to date him was just icing on the cake.

They cut across a clearing on the outskirts of the woods and climbed a hill at Matthew’s direction. None of them seemed very inclined to talk as they went. It was most likely a combination of tiredness from the early morning and vigilance as they constantly scanned the terrain for the hint of an infected or Necros. However, he was in a good mood overall.

He stumbled over a raised rock, and Marcel righted him with a hand on his shoulder. He gave him a grateful smile and promised himself that he’d keep a better eye on where he was walking from now on.

He took a deep breath of the fresh air. “I wished people still lived in the country. I would love a little cottage somewhere with a big garden.”

“Why don’t you buy a house in one of the neighborhoods that allow acreage?” Marcel asked. “There are several in sector thirteen.”
“Not the same,” Andrew said, stepping over a hole. “I get more “Not the same,” Andrew said, stepping over a hole. “I get more degree access to my house.”
“Maybe our descendants will one day return to the countryside,” Matthew added, adjusting the dial on his watch. “For now, it’s safer in the cities and suburbs.”
“I know,” Andrew said. “But I think it would be nice if such a place existed.”
“Quiet down. I’m reading some heat signatures over the next ridge,” Matthew said, dropping lower as they approached the top. “At the ridgeline we’ll be most vulnerable.” Andrew followed his example, and they were belly crawling by the time they reached the peak. He glanced down the hill.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. The area between the forest and the bottom of the hill was crammed with infected of all types. The vacantlooking ones stood on the outskirts, moving restlessly. They had to be lower-level infected. Then further toward the tree line crouched and stood the ones who looked more like the predatory Necros that he’d heard horror stories about. They resembled vicious predators more than they did people. He didn’t exactly know what physically separated them from the regular ambling corpses. Maybe it was the awareness they seemed to have or perhaps the coordination.
“Who the hell is that?” Marcel asked, pointing down to the forest line. On a set of boulders right before the forest began stood a figure that looked markedly different from the rest. They were close enough that Andrew could see him reasonably well. Oddly enough he was clean, which was weird. Beyond that, he was dressed in what looked like fresh clothes.
“I have no idea,” Matthew whispered. “Whoever he is, he’s either extremely brave or excessively stupid. He’s not even trying to hide himself.” He raised his com and hit a button on the screen. The com magnified the image until the face of the man was clearly visible. He looked human. “Good-looking suicidal idiot, whoever he is.”
Andrew nodded. There was something
off
about him, though. He was as handsome as Matthew claimed, dark haired, square jawed, and well muscled. His eyes were an insane shade of gold, though. It clicked. “He’s not human. He’s the Necro king.”
“Oh Christ,” Marcel swore. “That’s not good.”
Matthew’s frown deepened. “Not good is a vast understatement. He’s supposed to be further south. I don’t mind dodging infected or even Necros. Necro Kings can orchestrate a mob like a chess player at a board of pawns. Fuck. We’re going to have to find an alternate path.”
Andrew jumped as a voice shouted from the mob below. “I don’t care what you have to do, find him!”
“Did it just speak?” Marcel asked, slack-jawed. “I mean, I’m not hallucinating. It just spoke English, didn’t it? Not crumbly sentences but, like, real hardcore sentences?”
Matthew looked as speechless as Andrew felt. He stared at the screen as the voice continued. “I’ve waited too long. You will bring him here.”
“Master,” another of the Necros said in a stilted voice, stepping away from the crowd. “Hungry.”
The Necro King waved a hand in dismissal. “So find the runner and eat. I want my pet back!” He let out a shriek that had Andrew covering his ears for the sound. “I fed you scores of men. You will survive a few more days.”
“Master, hungry,” the Necro repeated. He growled low, and the fine hairs on Andrew’s arms raised.
The Necro King sighed like the request was the most annoying thing he’d heard. “Fine. Take a hunting party into the forest and track down a few deer to satisfy the herd. Afterward, find my Derek. He’s here somewhere. I know it.” Then he whistled. It was unlike any whistle he’d heard before. The brilliant notes were enchanting and seemed to calm the restlessness the mob was feeling because they turned in unison and ambled slowly into the forest behind the Necro King. The Necros took off at a dead run, outpacing the slower-moving infected easily. Only the Necro King and two others remained behind.
“Can you take them out at this range?” Marcel asked, motioning to the rifle strapped across Matthew’s back.
He shook his head. “And alert every infected in the area to our presence? I think not. No. Let’s just back away slowly and head in the opposite direction. We’re going to need an air pickup. They keep cutting us off, unwittingly or not.”
“I don’t know if the UMF are going to allow it,” Marcel said, fear evident in his expression.
“I don’t see that we have much choice, love.” Matthew didn’t sound any happier about it than Marcel did.
Andrew looked as the Necro King jumped down from the rock and sat down with his back resting against it. He actually took some sort of fruit from his pocket and chewed it. It looked like some kind of apple.
The infected only eat meat
. They’d been told their entire lives that they couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat anything but meat, and weren’t anything resembling human. All the infected Andrew had ever seen had followed that stereotype.
“We don’t know anything,” Andrew whispered. “All this time, all this research, and we don’t know anything.”
“Let’s go,” Matthew said as the Necros started sniffing the air, circling the clearing below their hiding place. “Move, before they smell us.”
Andrew turned on his belly and crawled back down the embankment, anxious to be out of the range of those things. The Necro King gave him the willies. He felt rather than heard the two of them follow him down. The longer he was here, the more hopeless the situation seemed.
He let the two of them lead him further away from the clearing, back the way they’d come toward the river. “We’re not going to make it back,” he whispered, feeling cold all of a sudden “Those things are too smart. They’re not like normal infected.”
Warm arms immediately bracketed him on either side, surrounding him with the scent of both field agents. “We will make it back home,” Matthew promised. “I’ve been in worse situations with worse odds. Besides, we’ve got to make it back. We’ve got a date to go to.”
“I’ll never let anything happen to you ever again,” Marcel added, kissing the top of his head. “Matthew and I will take care of you.”
“I don’t want to be taken care of. I want to go home.” He believed that they would take care of him, but he wasn’t a wilting flower. He was terrified that this situation had once again taken a turn for the worse. However, it wasn’t a crippling fear. He just wanted so badly to get back to his quiet life. He missed his garden and his condo. He missed his bed. God, how he missed his bed.
“We’ll get you home,” Matthew said. “We can spend the first two months locked in your condo for all I care. I’ll go out for food runs and nothing else.”
Andrew laughed at that mental picture. Marcel would probably go stir-crazy from that. He liked to go out and do things from the conversations he’d heard between him and others of his field team. “Sounds good.”
“Sounds brilliant,” Marcel agreed. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m asking for extended leave with pay.”
Matthew chuckled. “I am on leave now. You see how wonderful that ended up?”
“Workaholic,” Andrew teased. He let his breath out. “Okay. I’m calm. Sorry, guys.”
“It’s okay. I’m almost mental about this situation as well,” Marcel admitted. “We’ll keep one another straight.”
Matthew kissed his cheek before releasing the hold he had on him. He keyed in a sequence on his com.
Daniel’s voice came over the speaker a second later. “What can I do for you, Matthew?”
“We’re going to need an airlift.” Matthew spoke with a calm confidence of someone who had been in a hopeless situation like this before and had come out the other side without fear. Andrew supposed it was good that he was so calm even if it was unnerving to see someone so nonchalant. “We’ll never be able to walk out of here on foot. I need a helicopter removal team and a pickup location. If you need UMF support, talk to Jack Gibson in special divisions. He should be able to get you the permits necessary. As far as I know, he’s on leave right now, but he should still have some pull in the civilian regulations department. Once Deadzone has a permit, you guys will only get one shot. Tell my uncles that they better get the best pilot they have because the regulations are only good for one run, one shot. We’ll go to the farthest point northward we can in the wilds. Once you have a location, we’ll meet you guys there.”
“Got it,” Daniel said. “Brook is calling his dads now. We should have a helicopter at the ready for whenever the permit goes through. I’m keying in the coordinates for the best pickup location and sending them to your com now. I’ll contact you with a time soon.”
“Look,” Andrew said, pointing past the two field agents. “Do you remember that transporter being here?” It looked like one of the other sponsored ATVs from another run team.
“Gotta go, Daniel,” Matthew said, disconnecting the com. “No. I do not remember that transporter.”
Marcel jogged over to it and opened the door. “There is blood here but it’s not fresh. However, there is a medi pack and a field pack.”
“Open it up and see if anything in there is useful. Maybe we’ll run into some friends out here after all,” Matthew said. Andrew leaned against Matthew’s shoulder, tired suddenly. It had to be the constant state of anxiousness that had him fatigued.
Come on, Ainsley. You’ve made it this long
. Time out here was really taking its toll. As if he read his mind, Matthew leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Hey, it’ll be over soon, Andrew. No worries. We’ll hike for a little while and then take a break. How about it?”
He nodded. “Sounds good.”
Marcel turned back toward them before walking back over. “No extra food but I did find a suture kit and a bottle of condom gel. Why anyone would need condom gel out here is beyond me, but at least now we have an option.”
Matthew chuckled. “Any lube?”
“No such luck.”
“Damn,” Andrew said, half-joking. His mind wasn’t really on sex, but he was sure that would change given enough time. It seemed like since he’d met up with the two of them he’d thought of little else when they were sitting together and not running for their lives, which was odd. He wasn’t usually a supremely sexual person.
“However, we’ve got some scent-free lotion,” Marcel added, a smile stretching his lips.
Matthew smirked. “Nice.”
“I think we should keep moving,” Andrew cut in. “What if whoever was driving got infected?”
“Good point, baby,” Marcel said. “I’ve got all the useful stuff. Too bad there weren’t any food packs.”
They hiked for another hour before Matthew okayed them to take a break. They stopped beside a small creek within sight of the river and opened their bags to get out their snack bars. They’d probably eat their hot packs later on when they stopped for the night. If
we stop for the night
. He was hopeful that they would get good news from Deadzone about the permit sooner rather than later.
It wasn’t long before Andrew was leaning against Marcel’s legs as he sat on a nearby rock and let Matthew feed him bits of his gummy snack as they rested. Marcel reached out and kneaded the back of his neck, dispelling the tension there. It was nice, being taken care of by two gorgeous men. He could definitely get used to it.
“Hmmm, that feels good.”
Marcel chuckled. “I aim to please.”
“We’ll give you a full-body one later,” Matthew added, his tone teasing. He shivered despite the playful nature of their conversation as he remembered the condom gel. When was the last time he’d fallen into bed with someone? “Those Necros were something out of a bad Corpse Rom movie.” Corpse Rom was a new era of hopeful romantic comedies in which the infected were “cured” by love. It was a sweet philosophical movement, but it wasn’t very realistic. The infected did not fall in love and change back into people. It just didn’t happen. There was no cure, but artists tried to make light of their world they lived in.
“They were talking and everything. I’ve never heard a corpse talk before,” Marcel murmured. “Not even on training vids.”
“That’s because it doesn’t happen. If it did, people would go nuts. I’m pretty high clearance, and I’ve never even heard rumors about the infected talking,” Matthew said. “If nothing else, we need to get back to civilization and let them know that it’s mutating in some way.”
“The media is going to flip,” Andrew said. He put the last bit of protein bar in his mouth and chewed. The bland peanut butter flavor did nothing for him, but it was sustenance, so he supposed he shouldn’t complain.
“The media will never hear about it,” Matthew corrected.
Andrew frowned. “Why not?”
“Because the government will want to keep it quiet. If word gets out, the public will panic.”
“Unfortunately, that’s true,” Marcel said. “They’ll probably end up sending some Special Ops agents in to take out this mob. They’ll kill every one of them. Them sounding more human will only spell trouble for what’s left of humanity.”
“What if they are becoming human again?” Andrew asked, playing devil’s advocate. “What if the Corpse Rom has it a little bit correct?”
“Hmmm,” Matthew murmured. “Did that thing sound human to you? Even though it was talking, did it show any sort of humanity? It hungered. It wanted. It killed humans for the consumption of its peers. Looking more like us, sounding more like us, doesn’t make them us.”
“The Necro King was looking for something though, someone. What was the name?” Andrew asked. He’d begun the discussion with a purely theoretical mindset. However, now that he got to thinking about it, there was a definitely something more than food in the discussion they’d heard earlier.
“Derek,” Marcel said. “I’m pretty sure that was the name.”
Matthew shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what it was. We just need to avoid the mob and concentrate on getting out of here. Let the UMF and SCAB agents handle the implications of an infected-driven manhunt.”
“I feel like we should do something,” Andrew began.
“No way in hell,” Matthew interrupted. “I won’t risk you or Marcel playing Nancy fucking Drew. There is nothing here we need to do but stay the fuck alive until the permits go through.”
Andrew searched his face as the agitation in his voice rose until the end of his sentence was all but snarled in Andrew’s direction. “Matthew?” he asked, concerned.
Matthew’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap.”
“You’re scared.” Andrew didn’t make it a question. He knew. Something about these Necros had unnerved him.
“I’m fucking terrified,” the big field agent whispered. “The world just doesn’t seem to be moving the way it’s supposed to.”