State of Decay (Omnibus (Parts 1-4)) (15 page)

“Don’t. I just had to. Life is too fragile—too short—nowadays to live with regret. And if I die today, I’ll die without any after that kiss.” I gulped, breathless and unable to articulate any response. I mean, what does a girl say to something like that? “I’ll do what I can do for you, so just keep your eyes and ears ready for my distraction.” He turned and put a hand on the door handle.

“Wait. How am I supposed to know what your distraction is?” I asked. He opened the door a crack and glanced back at me over his shoulder. I watched as a small smile spread across his face and he winked at me.

“Oh, you’ll know it when you see it, sweetheart,” he said as he went through the door, closing it behind him. I waited several minutes after he left, trying to calm my heartbeat and my nerves before exiting the small supply closet. It wasn’t until I was back out in the hallway that I remembered that I was lost.

“Damn,” I muttered as I took off down a halfway familiar looking hallway.

S
everal strings of curse words
later, I found myself back in the common area of the base, the place quite abandoned compared to the day before. A few people loitered here and there, but mostly it was empty. I was standing in the doorway, trying to decide where I should go and what I should do, when Jude came striding down the opposite corridor with a murderous look on his face. Two of the six people in the common area saw him coming and scooted out of his way, sensing his mood well before he even got close to them. I didn’t blame them, he looked capable of mass murder in that moment. When he finally noticed me standing across the room, his body visibly unwound just enough to allow the entire room to take a much needed breath of relief.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I’m beginning to feel really twitchy. The guards here won’t give me any of my weapons. Not even a knife.” His eyes met mine and I could see that his pupils were slightly dilated. I nodded in understanding. I kept finding myself reaching for the hilt of my knife and it was a horrible feeling to be without any means of self-defense after living and fighting for your life every day for over two years. Yeah, I knew exactly how he felt. “I don’t care how secure this base is, I want to be able to defend myself if necessary,” he said through clenched teeth. I reached out and put a hand on his arm. His eyes found mine again and his shoulders relaxed another fraction.

“We need to talk,” I said softly, glancing around the room. He nodded and led me off to another hallway.

“Let’s go grab a bagged lunch and talk back in the room,” he suggested. We grabbed the lunches and left the mess hall as quickly as we entered it, both of us deep in our own thoughts. I was also in awe of how easily Jude had already memorized the layout of the base. It was completely unfair. I sat on the bed while Jude sat on the floor with his back against a wall in our room and quickly polished off our small meals.

“So, what have you found out?” I asked around a mouthful of peanuts.

“You want the bad news or the worst news first?” he asked before taking a swig of water.

“Give me the bad,” I answered with a frown.

“Well, it looks like however many soldiers are left, they are kept literally under lock and key twenty-four hours a day. Add to that several guards and it would be next to impossible to free them,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. I nodded. His eyes met mine. “You knew that much?” he asked, a bit surprised.

“I did. And there are maybe twenty soldiers left now.” I confirmed. Jude whistled through his teeth.

“Even if we were able to free them, we don’t know what kind of shape they’re in or how in the world we would be able to get them through the zombie hordes outside. If we made it that far.” I grimaced. It seemed even worse once I thought it through for the fifth time.

“If that’s the bad news, what’s the worst?” I asked.

“It seems Jim and Jessica have something in store for us this afternoon, something we should probably worry about since it takes place during this
assembly
of theirs. At least, that’s what my source said.” His jaw clenched and then he glanced up at me. “Holy shit. You knew that too,” he said in outrage. I shrugged.

“I’d heard something like that,” I answered softly. “I also heard that they are probably onto us and don’t plan on letting us get out of here in one piece. Also that Jessica
Germain is more monster than human, that she was the one who slipped into the base with only the intent to let her group in while everyone was asleep, that she hates anyone and everything military, and that she gets off on banishing people weaponless into the zombie infested city streets when they cross her.” I took a deep breath and let my head fall back on the wall behind me. What was the point of surviving if you lose your humanity in the process? What did everything matter if we just let ourselves turn into a different breed of monster?

“What do you plan on doing, then? Jude asked gently. “About
Germain, I mean? I know you two were close not so very long ago.” God, could it have been only a little less than three years ago that we were both in high school and giggling over hot guys and the shallowness of half the senior class girls? It felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like someone else’s life. I didn’t know this version of Jessica. She was a stranger to me in this new world surrounded by the dead and dying.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” I said after a moment. I sat up straighter and caught Jude’s eye. “I’m going to kill Jessica
Germain.” Jude’s eyes searched mine and his mouth set into a grim line.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, Mel,” he said with a sigh.

“I hope it doesn’t either.”

“So, what’s the plan?” he asked. I raised a brow. “What?” he asked with a crooked grin. “You seem to know more than I do,” he said with a hint of chagrin. I smiled, despite myself.

“Well, I’m not really sure. We are supposed to have some help,” I said quickly. The smile disappeared from Jude’s face instantly.

“Help,” he said. Not really a question. I swallowed and pushed ahead, quickly blurting out most of what happened with Tex, but leaving out a few little details of a certain toe-curling kiss that probably should never have happened.

“So, yeah. Help.” I let out a long breath after my tale and watched as Jude digested everything I’d just told him.

“So, we’re not only supposed to trust him, but also just wait for his signal, his big
distraction
.” His words dripped with sarcasm. I opened my mouth, but he was quick to cut me off. “Oh! Don’t let me forget … we also have
no idea
what this distraction is supposed to be or if it will even work.
That
is our plan.” His eyes cut into mine, asking me if I even heard what I’d just said. I admit, it sounded lame, but, what choice did we have?

“It’s the
only
plan, Jude. What else can we do?” I asked. “Do you have any other ideas?” His jaw clenched and he stood, striding back and forth in the room, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

“I don’t. But surely we could come up with something. Anything. The guy probably just wants to get in your pants.” I gasped and bounded off the bed to stand directly in front of him.

“That was uncalled for, Jude,” I said through clenched teeth. Jude’s gaze pierced me, searching my face. His eyes widened and his mouth settled into a straight line. “The son of a bitch made a move on you,” he gritted out. My face flamed, but I shook my head.

“That has nothing to do with me trusting him or the fact that this is the only course of action we can take,” I said calmly.

“The hell it doesn’t. It’s pretty hard to mistrust a guy who has his tongue in your mouth and his hand down your panties,” Jude said in disgust.

I don’t remember actually making a decision to get pissed off, but I guess my hand made it for me. The sound of my palm striking Jude across the cheek echoed in the room and jerked his head to the side. We both stood there with barely a foot of space between us, our chests heaving. My palm was stinging and I imagined Jude’s cheek was smarting like a bitch. And just like that, the wind left my sails in one strong
whoosh
.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …” My words were cut off, my breath robbed from me as Jude gathered me into his arms and hugged me to him so forcefully that I thought my back might crack. His face and nose were buried
into the sensitive area between my neck and shoulder and his hands roamed my back, trying to pull me closer, as if to absorb me into himself.

“God. You slay me, Melody Carter. I’m sorry. I’m a jackass,” he murmured against my neck. The last bit of fight melted out of me and I buried a hand into the back of his shirt and held onto him as tightly as possible. “You’ve completely invaded me, Mel,” he said gruffly. I pulled him gently until we were next to the bed.

“Lie down with me, Jude,” I whispered softly. We laid in each other’s arms for a while, my head on his chest, before I was able to speak past the lump in my throat. “I’m going to make love to you, Jude.” He stiffened. “Not right now, not here,” I said conversationally. “But once we get out of here, alive and well, I’m going to make love to you because I want to. Because I want you to be the first and last guy I sleep with in this new world, in this new life. The only guy who means enough to me that I would put my heart and my life on the line for.”

Jude understood what I was saying. He understood what it meant to open yourself up to the possibility of love and living when everything could be ripped away from you at any moment. He knew it meant that I was halfway in love with him and he let me know that he felt the same with a kiss that couldn’t have been mistaken for anything other than an “I love you too” in
any
world.

W
e were up and following
behind a guard who was toting an automatic rifle after a hard knock on our door a few hours later. Jude and I glanced back and forth at each other uneasily. There really was no telling what we were getting ourselves into. I could only hope and pray that whatever Tex had up his sleeve would be good enough to give us an edge for what was in store for us. When we passed through empty hallways and an equally empty wreck room, I felt a stab of apprehension in the back of my skull. Where was everyone? What was worse was that we climbed the stairs that had led us into the base the first day … the ones that led back out into the toy factory and then out into the open city. Surely we weren’t just going to be tossed out into the zombie fray. By the time we entered the toy factory, my uneasiness had tripled and I wondered if I should make a move to take the guard down. I glanced over at Jude and he shook his head once.
No.

It took me a moment to realize that we were headed to the very back of the factory instead of the way we had entered. I didn’t see what we were headed into, but I could suddenly
hear
something. When we went through the double doors in the back of the factory it took me a full minute to really grasp what I was seeing through the blinding sunlight. To understand what it was I was hearing. Jude sucked in a breath through his teeth next to me and it was only his presence that made me feel grounded, feel like I wasn’t dreaming or imagining the awfulness that was reality.

The scene in front of me made no sense, but then again, neither did a world chockfull of the living dead. We had walked out into what appeared to be a fenced-in shipping and receiving area for the abandoned toy factory. All of the semi-trucks had been arranged around in a circle—bumper to bumper—and on top of the trailers there sat tons and tons of people. They were screaming and cheering. I took a step out of the opening that I was standing in and realized they had lined the trucks up out of the shipping area in such a way that people could walk out of the factory and up a ramp, straight to the tops of the trucks. The guard that had led us out of the base nudged me and I took another step forward with Jude right beside me. When I reached the top of the first truck, I stopped, feeling dizzy from the view before me. Two semis divided the circle in half, parked with the back bumper of each one touching one another to make a bridge of sorts across the circle. Swarming the middle of the two half circles below us were no less than a hundred zombies. I immediately stepped away from the edge, my hand going to place that my knife should have been.

“What the fuck?” Jude hissed.

I glanced across the circle and spotted barbed wire poking out from under each truck. Large, wooden pikes pointed straight out toward the arena of undead to keep them corralled within the circle of semis. These people thought that made them safe, they thought they were in control of the situation. A small bubble of laughter worked its way past my lips.

“Finding something funny again, Mel?” Jessica’s voice threw a bucket of ice-cold realization in my face as I turned to face her.

“Well, it kind of tickles me to think of all the arrogance the person who built this must be burdened to walk around with on a daily basis.” I shrugged. “Yeah, I find that funny.” I didn’t see her hand whip out, but when I turned back to meet the hatred in her eyes, I wiped the blood away from the corner of my mouth and smiled. “Oh, that wasn’t you, was it?” I asked, my eyes wide in mock horror. The second open-handed slap was well worth the look on her face. Besides, she still hit like a girl. I barely bit back another laugh. I didn’t want to goad her into pushing me over the side of the truck too early in her day’s planned festivities.

“What is all of this?” I asked, motioning towards the screaming and cheering people and down to the gurgling, moaning zombies just below us. Her smile told me everything I already knew, but didn’t want to believe.

“This? This is just a little entertainment that I’ve had prepared for our
guests
,” she said loudly. Everyone nearby cheered at her words. The blood in my veins chilled. “Let’s go.” The guard behind me gave me a tiny shove and it took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to turn around and smash his nose into his skull. When we reached the center of the circle where the semis formed a bridge, Jessica and Jim were given folding chairs to sit on. Someone else sat a third chair in between the two of them. “Come and sit by me,” she purred from her throne.

I glanced over at Jude and then back at the chair. Jessica laughed loudly and then motioned for me to take the seat with a raised brow. Jude nodded at me. I clenched my teeth and took the seat in between
Tweedledee
and
Tweedledum
. When I sat down, I saw several more armed men headed our way.  They also had a familiar face with them. I watched as they brought the man who I’d threatened with a knife the day before in front of us, my heart pounding a little too loudly. What the hell?

“We’ve been having troubles with Hosea here for a while now. After your little altercation yesterday, I decided to make an example of him and have him
punished
.” I narrowed my eyes and waited for the other shoe to fall. Jessica smiled as she spoke the next words. “I’ve decided to let Jude do the honors.” She nodded over at Jude as if she were bestowing some great honor upon him. “A fight to the death,” she finished. I jumped to my feet only to find myself with Jim’s hand around my throat and his knife biting into my jugular. He made a clucking sound of disappointment with his tongue. It took three men to hold Jude back and even then they had a hard time.

“Stop fighting, or I will cut her throat,” Jim spat. He dug his knife into my throat to make his point and I hissed at the sharp pain there. Jude immediately stilled. Jessica laughed again. She stood up and walked over to Jude to run a hand up and down his chest. I stiffened, feeling an unreasonable amount of rage rush through my body.

“Ah, so that wasn’t all a show … you
do
have a thing going on with Melody,” she said gleefully. “That makes this so much more fun.” My hands balled into a fist at my sides and Jude mirrored the action. I almost smiled.

“You will fight or she will die, either by my hand or by the undead ripping her to pieces,” Jim spoke against my temple and then placed a small lick there. Jude strained forward before catching himself. I shuddered.

“I’ll fight,” Jude said. His body was calm, but his eyes … his eyes were another story. Jessica nodded to the men holding Jude. They led him to the edge of the bus. I watched as one of them jumped down to the hood of the first semi. One of the guards shoved Hosea and he scrambled not to fall off of the top of the truck and into the nest of hungry zombies below. I closed my eyes as Jude was similarly shoved. He landed easily on the hood of the truck and the followed behind Hosea as he made his way to the top of the two truck trailers. One of the guards took Hosea all the way to the end of the second trailer and then handed him a knife before jumping down to the hood of the truck at the other side of the circle. Jude was also given a knife and left alone at his end of the trailer.

I stood at the edge of the arena, looking out at the two men, each grasping a knife, each standing on the roof of their truck trailer. Then, a shot landed near Jude’s feet … just a warning that he could be shot at any time if he chose not to play their little game. Jude glanced back at me for one second, but seeing me at the edge of the truck’s roof with Jim’s arm around my neck and the zombies below, thrashing wildly to get at us was enough. Jude began running.

And my heart stopped.

Jude and Hosea met each other in the middle, both swinging their knives and trying to avoid the slashing of their opponent’s steel. Jude ducked as Hosea slashed his knife out high, aiming for his face. Hosea’s leg caught Jude behind the knees and the earth tilted as Jude rolled close enough to the edge of the trailer to cause the undead to writhe and moan at the promise of a fresh meal. I bucked against the restraints of Jim’s arms, only to realize how close we were to the edge of the pit. If I did pull myself free, I would likely end up plummeting off of the trailer and right into the welcoming hands of dozens and dozens of zombies.

“Looks like Jude underestimated his opponent,” Jessica said with her eyes still on the fight. “That’s
so
like a soldier,” she spat. I turned my eyes back to the fight going on just in time to see Hosea’s blade slice across Jude’s stomach. I cried out as Jessica stood there and smiled.

“Why are you doing this? What happened to the girl I used to know?” I asked as Jude stumbled to the side and drove Hosea back several feet.

“The girl you knew is dead,” she said calmly. “The army made sure of that.” I shook my head, unable to take that as the truth.

“You may wish the girl you once were was dead, but I know better. She’s there somewhere hiding in the recesses of your conscience. This person you’ve become isn’t you, Jess,” I said, my voice pleading, begging for her to acknowledge the truth. She turned her face to me and I shrunk back from the force of her gaze.

“Jessica is dead. Germain
is
who I am now.” Her voice whipped across my skin, raising goose bumps along my arms. I opened my mouth to argue, but the crowds began cheering loudly, drawing my attention back to Jude. He was blocking Hosea’s attack. Just as Hosea plunged forward, Jude moved to the side at the last second and pulled his knife across Hosea’s stomach. Blood blossomed on Hosea’s white shirt as he stumbled, lost his footing, and began teetering over the edge of the trailer. It all happened so fast and yet it seemed like it all happened in slow motion at the same time. Jude leapt forward, reaching for Hosea, grabbing for his arm with his blood-covered hand, only to have Hosea’s hand slip right through his as he plunged into the middle of the zombie mosh pit. The crowd seemed to hold its breath for an extra-long second before they once again erupted into applause, cheers, and whoops of delight. Hosea’s screams were lost in the noise.

“Well, now that’s a bit of a surprise,” Jim said. “Hosea was one of our best knife fighters.” I shook my head, trying to clear the buzzing there. Jude was heading back across the tops of the semis, his eyes on me and Jim with a look of such calm and clarity that it was a hundred times more terrifying than his rage. As he reached the end of the semi, a guard was there waiting for Jude to hand over his knife. His eyes met mine. His hand clenched around the hilt of the knife that he possessed. The guard visibly stiffened and raised his gun. Jude threw the knife at the guard’s feet with a sneer.

“That was a bit anticlimactic,” Jessica said as Jude joined us. “I guess it’s a good thing I have more fun planned for you both now isn’t it?” Jude watched as Jessica took her seat once again and then nodded to a soldier still on the hood of the semi that Jude had just fought on. He ran across the bridge and continued back toward the shipping and receiving terminal until I lost sight of him. “Now that we’ve seen what Uncle Sam’s finest can do, let’s see what the offspring of Uncle Sam’s finest can handle.” Jessica smiled over at me, her eyes narrowed and pleased with herself. Jude shouted out and only a gun to my head stopped him from morphing Hulk-style and kicking someone’s face in. Jim gave me a slimy kiss at my temple before pushing me forward into the waiting arms of another armed guard.

I was prepared for the push when it came, but landing on a metal roof without sliding right off the side was not as easy as it seemed, even with well-tread combat boots on. Still, the moaning and gurgling of a mob of undead was motivation enough for me to keep my wits about me as I found my footing and climbed to the trailer of the semi. The guard behind me tossed me the knife that Jude had just got finished with, the blood still fresh on the blade. I picked it up, wiping it off on my pants. Despite the situation, a sense of calm and rightness descended upon me. I turned and smiled at the guard. His eyes widened fractionally and his hand tightened around the gun he carried. He
should
have been worried. I was pissed and I was feeling quite ready to tear someone apart with my bare hands. He had just handed me my weapon of choice and … I knew how to use it—very, very well.

Movement out of my peripheral vision alerted me to the newest surprise that Jessica
Germain had in store for me. I watched as the guard that left earlier led a rag tag group of men and one woman along the tops of the semis on the other side of the circle from Jessica, Jim, and Jude. I squinted in the sunlight, wondering if Jessica planned to make me fight all of them. Then, I finally realized something. These were the soldiers that Jessica had been holding captive. She was going to make me fight the soldiers we’d come to free.
How perfectly ironic
.