Shut Up and Kiss Me (33 page)

Without a word—a damn good thing for Jimmy—he nodded once and disappeared from where he’d come.

I stared after him a moment before glancing back down at the boy. Stepping forward into the living room, I knelt down beside him and grabbed hold of the arrow before yanking it free. It came loose easily, releasing a gush of thick black liquid. After tossing the arrow aside, I then dragged my fingertips over his eyelids, closing them. I didn’t know why I did it; I’d never done it before, usually not caring one way or another and content to let the Rotters live, rather than giving them mercy. Unless they gathered in a sizable horde, the Rotters posed no real threat to me. They weren’t fast anymore, the majority of them rotted to the point of putty. Mostly, like everyone else, they were just in my way.

Gritting my teeth, I stood up and surveyed the room. This was the fourth house we’d hit, collecting what we could—clothing, bedding, dishes, whatever we could find that was still worth something today. I hadn’t been out scavenging for supplies, other than vehicles, in a long time, and now that I was out again, I remembered why I’d stopped. Being inside a home full of pictures and furnishings of a well-lived life, of a family, I couldn’t stomach it, didn’t want to remember it. Like everything else good that had been swept from our lives, I wished the homes, the pictures, the memories would have gone too, disappeared like everything else had.

I’d had a house like this once. Not a farmhouse, but something bigger and better. A row home in a thriving city, but a home all the same. Full of pictures, laughter, the television blaring, the smell of home-cooked meals…

“
Fuck this,” I muttered, then turned around and headed for the front door. Kicking it open, I descended the porch, taking all four steps at once and marching back toward the three pickups parked out front.

I climbed inside my own truck, a monster four-wheel drive with a 6.2-liter V-8, a full backseat, a covered bed, and rigged with everything I could manage to find and fit on it necessary to survive in the Wilds if it ever came down to that. Iron bars were welded over the windows, a steel-covered grill fitted with ax blades protected both the front and rear lights, metal plates were hung over the wheel wells, and heavy-duty flood lamps were affixed to the roof. I always kept a healthy supply of canned and dry food along with water in it at all times, enough to last me a month. Spare tires and fuel as well.

Rolling down the driver’s side window, I spit out a wad of foul-tasting saliva through the bars, still tasting the fuel I’d siphoned earlier from two deserted minivans we’d come across. Who knew if the fuel was even still good, but more often than not it was, and fuel, much like women, was worth its weight in gold these days.

Glancing down at my gloved hands, I pulled the leather from my fingers and stared at my dirty palms. I was itchy with all sorts of shit I didn’t want to be feeling, emotions I hadn’t felt in so long, and never wanted to feel again.

Wildcat—Evelyn—the bitch had gotten under my skin something fierce. I couldn’t keep lying to myself. These feelings weren’t something I was going to easily wipe away with a fuck and a drink. The woman had caused a ripple in the carefully constructed existence I’d managed to whittle out for myself, a ripple that for some fucking reason was sending me into a tailspin. Suddenly nothing felt…right, least of all me. I was losing control. And for a man like me, who was barely in control to begin with, even I knew it was a dangerous thing to lose what tenuous grasp I had left on it.

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I clenched my hands, my dark knuckles whitening the harder I squeezed.

Get your shit together
, I told myself.

You’ve never had your shit together
, a familiar voice answered.

Goddammit, I needed a cigarette. Chewing tobacco. Anything to take the goddamn edge off.

Prying my hands from the steering wheel, I reached across the cab and popped my glove box open, pulling free a flask that had once belonged to my uncle. I whipped off the cap and took a long, hard swig of honest-to-God whiskey that dated back to before the world had ended. I kept it there, bringing it out only when I really needed a taste of the good stuff.

Only this time, the moment the familiar flavor exploded in my mouth, instead of satiating my need for oblivion, it flooded me with memories. The sound of my uncle’s laughter, his voice hoarse, raspy from too many years of smoking two packs a day, the sound of hard rock booming from inside the garage while the two of us worked on cars. The feel of his hand on my shoulder squeezing lightly, just before he took his last breath.

I was truly fucking losing it. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and took another swig of whiskey, hoping to drink away the past, but only succeeding in causing more images from a life long gone to rise to the surface.

Red hair and blue eyes.

Dimples.

Laughter.

Hair matted with blood, eyes clouded with disease.

Sunken-in cheeks.

Snarling growls.

My stomach clenched painfully, my face twisting with discomfort as I sank even further into my memories, feeling all the pain that came with them, every bit as sharp and as cutting as…

Instantly, the familiar rage was back, manifesting itself as a dangerous hum inside my blood, causing it to boil and burn as it pumped through my body. Locking my jaw, I sat rigid in my seat, glaring down at the flask in my hand.

It was better this way. The anger took hold of me, swallowed me whole, made it possible for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Focus
, I told myself.
Fucking focus.

The voice inside me only laughed.

Furious at myself, I screwed the cap back on the flask, then tossed it back inside the glove box and slammed it closed. When I looked up, I focused again on the house in front of me, on the men beginning to filter out of it, their arms full of pilfered goods.

Feeling entirely not right and pretty damn sure I was losing my mind, I pushed open the door of the truck and grabbed an armful of supplies from the nearest man. After tossing the finds into the bed of my truck, I spun around and marched back toward the house for more.

Reminiscences were for the weak. And dwelling on the shit you couldn’t change was a waste of time and a good way to get yourself killed.

I wasn’t weak and I didn’t dwell; I did what had to be done. I stayed focused on tomorrow, and on ensuring that I would live to see it by whatever means necessary, damning to hell whatever got in my way.

Whatever helps you sleep at night
, the voice sang, mocking me.

I didn’t sleep that night. Like most nights, I ended up tossing and turning, falling in and out of my usual stream of nightmares until morning brazenly seeped into my home. I cracked open one bleary eye then the other, glaring at the sunlight streaming obnoxiously through the torn and battered blankets I’d nailed to the wall in lieu of curtains.

“
Fuck you,” I muttered, and turned my face into the mattress. I’d never been a heavy sleeper, but since the end of the world my insomnia had only worsened. At the tiniest noise, I was up and out of bed, weapons blazing.

Good for survival. Bad for my sanity.

For five more minutes, I attempted to sleep before rolling off the mattress and getting to my feet. Still in the same clothing as yesterday, including my boots, I only had to strap on my weapons and grab a quick drink of water from my supply. Then I was out the door, heading toward the makeshift garage at the far end of the compound—my home away from home.

My truck had been running a little noisy yesterday, probably because it hadn’t been used in so long, so I’d sent it in for maintenance. Much like food and water, having a working vehicle was a necessity, more so when that vehicle was built especially for surviving in today’s perilous living conditions.

Ten minutes of walking through thick brush and I’d reached my destination. At the garage, a slouchy and squat structure in even worse condition than my own housing, I pulled back the tarpaulin that was the door and stepped inside.

Oil and grease greeted me, their sharp, pungent odors infiltrating my nostrils as I inhaled deeply. I’d always liked the smell of a working garage, feeling far more at home around metal scraps and engine bits than I ever did around people.

Two trucks were parked inside the small building, mine and another without tires, both of them on lifts. A pair of work boots peeked out from beneath my truck, and as I made my way toward them, the body attached slid out from beneath the underbelly of my truck.

Ademar, better known to the people of Purgatory as Adam, sat up on his creeper cart and gave me a mock salute. Grease was smeared across both his cheeks, making his Latino skin appear even darker. The sight reminded me of the dirty, scrawny, half-starved boy he’d been when he found us here.

Adam had been a pretty boy, working odd jobs as a model to pay his way through college when the infection had hit. A few people here, women mostly, had even recognized him, having seen him on the cover of magazines and Internet ads, usually posing in his goddamn underwear. He’d been a stranger to hard work at the time, especially manual labor. That had all since changed.

Bare-chested, Adam stood up, his height not quite matching mine. Wiping his hands on a rag hanging from his back pocket, he sucked in a breath and ran a dirty hand self-consciously across the scars, both long and short, that crisscrossed his torso. They were from his fighting days when he’d first arrived.

Like everyone else without a useful skill set, he’d had to fight to earn his way when he first arrived here. Usually, though, few who’d survived the fights had lived to keep telling their tales. One too many punches to the head usually rendered them little more than piles of muttering jelly. Sometimes, consumed with guilt for the many lives they’d taken, they ended up eating a bullet.

But Adam had survived. He wasn’t the same afterward, not even close, but neither was he damaged. After Liv had allowed him out of the ring, he’d taken up with Tony, one of my boys and the head mechanic, and had been working in the garage ever since.

“
It’s fine now.” Adam yawned as he absentmindedly scratched his stomach. “Yo, Mensa!” he shouted. “Bring me my coffee.” Turning away, he glanced over his shoulder and gestured me forward. “Follow me.”

As I trailed Adam around to the front of the truck, I noticed a large plastic bucket filled with thick black goop. “What the fuck is that?”

“
That
was
your oil,” he said, accepting the coffee mug that Mensa handed to him, “and this bitch purrs like a kitten now.” Taking a sip of his coffee, he slurped it down noisily and shook his head. “Wish I had some cigarettes to go with this.”

I took the mug that Mensa handed me, watching with amused disdain as he mumbled something incoherent then quickly turned away and scampered off toward the back of the garage.

“
He doing good here?” I asked, jerking my head in the direction Mensa had disappeared.

“
Yup, kid’s doing good here. He’s been working on an idea for casting bullets like you wanted.” With a grimace, Adam quickly downed the last of his coffee. “Anyway, this bitch will be primed and ready for you by this afternoon.”

Mensa, as we called him, was a skinny kid of maybe thirteen or fourteen. Clever as shit, he was one of the many orphaned children who called Purgatory their home. When people met him, most initially thought he was mentally inept due to the nonsensical shit he would sometimes say, when he decided to speak at all. And while he did have a long list of problems, he was actually brilliant. If I had to guess, I’d say it was autism that plagued the boy, some high-functioning form of it. Still, despite his smarts, I was amazed at how such a young boy, learning disabled at that, had survived on his own for any length of time. Not much impressed me anymore, but Adam and Mensa sure as hell did.

Nodding my thanks to Adam, I set my untouched coffee on a nearby toolbox before turning to leave. As I passed Tony on his way in, the bald Italian shot me his signature conniving smile that I returned with a glare. Tony might be a great mechanic and damn near expert with all kinds of weapons, both attributes that came in handy in a world such as this, but neither meant I had to like him. If he ever outlived his usefulness, I’d be first in line to twist his bulbous head from his stout body and revel in watching the life fade from his beady little eyes.

The sun had fully risen during my short stint inside the garage, making the air outside heavy and pungent. Today was going to be another scorcher. I debated for a moment between heading toward the main drag for food or heading for home, before finally settling on home. I’d eat later, once the majority of Purgatory was busy elsewhere.

I was halfway home when I saw something large moving through the tall grass, far too large to be a rabbit. I froze, one hand on my gun, the other poised to reach for my blade. Whether it was food or foe, it wouldn’t have the drop on me.

And then I noticed the foot. Easy to discern in a sparser patch of grass, a dirty foot was twitching. Not food then, and not foe either considering the foot appeared to be of the daintier variety. And from the way it twitched, I suspected that the owner of the foot was injured or dying. Still, you could never be too careful.