Time of Death Book 2: Asylum (A Zombie Novel) (18 page)

Striker sat beside me, eyes focused on the
water. I studied the man, not caring if my gawking made him
uncomfortable. His dark hair was buzzed close to his scalp, and his
cheeks and chin had a day's worth of stubble. An old scar marred
the tanned skin of his face, a jagged line that ran from the corner
of his eye to his ear. His chiseled jaw line set into a frown, and
his eyebrows knitted together with stress, forming vertical
creases.

"You don't talk much, do you?" I said, more a
statement than a question.

"There isn't much to say," he answered, still
fixed on the ocean.

The silence passed, and eventually I turned,
staring unfocused out at the rippling water.

"He was a good man," he admitted.

"It's not your fault, you know," I said.

Striker looked down at his hands, forcing my
gaze to follow along his body. The thin tee shirt stretched tight
across his broad chest, threatening to tear open at his biceps.

"But it is my fault." He snapped his head up
and looked at me, his sudden movement and hard expression causing
me to flinch. When he realized he'd scared me, his face softened,
leaving him looking haunted.

I squirmed under his stare, feeling exposed
and vulnerable, and broke eye contact.

"What's your story?" I asked him.

"I don't have one," he answered, his clipped
tone a warning to back off.

I tried again, changing tactics. "Is this
where you live now?"

"I stay here when I need to."

"So, what then? You just move around?"

Striker huffed, annoyed that I wouldn't let
it go. "I worked here, loading and unloading the containers from
barges. I lived in the apartment building." He emphasized the word
lived.

Before I could ask anything else, he got to
his feet and climbed down through the open hatch, leaving me alone
to reflect on the last few hours as the sun crept up from the east.
My body registered exhaustion, the heaviness in my muscles weighing
me down, and my mind fumbled to make sense of everything.

A hand appeared behind me holding out a water
bottle. I took it, registering my husband's presence from the
silver wedding ring he wore on his finger.

"You doing okay?" he asked as he sat, taking
the spot Striker had vacated a few minutes before.

"Not even a little bit," I responded, my
shoulder heaving with a long sigh. "What about the others? How are
Casey and Elorie handling things?"

"Not good. Elorie cried herself to sleep not
too long ago, and Casey is just sitting there holding her
daughter."

"Don't let them up here," I told him, using
my chin to motion toward Dom's prone form.

Jake saw him, and I heard his breath hitch.
"This whole thing is fucked up. We can't keep doing this shit. It's
eating away at me."

"Me, too," I agreed and leaned my tired body
into him. "I can't go in there yet. I'm not ready to face them.
Does that make me a coward?"

He turned his head; his face was so close to
mine that I felt his warm breath on my cheek. "No, Em, it makes you
human."

* * *

The sun was high in the sky, and the glare
hurt my eyes. I reached out my hand to Jake to help him to his feet
and he shook his head.

"I'll be down in a bit," he said.

Striker was gone when I finally went back
inside. I felt a twinge of annoyance at his disappearing act and
shrugged it off, remembering that we all dealt with grief in our
own way.

Vinny sat on the floor still guarding the
door we'd originally entered through. His eyes were closed and soft
snores escaped his open mouth. Meg was in the folding chair bent
over the small card table, her head resting on her hands as she
slept. Daphne lay curled up next to Elorie, her little body
pressing against the girl's back.

Only Casey's eyes remained open, tracking me
when I entered the small space. I gave her a small sympathetic
smile and forced myself to look her in the eye. Her emotionless
stare made me want to scurry into a dark corner like a rodent. The
only seat available was on the sofa beside them, and I didn't want
to disturb Elorie. Just keep telling yourself that, you weasel, I
thought. If I was being honest with myself, it was because I was
uncomfortable and didn't know what to say to them. What
conversation could I possibly have that wouldn't end up sounding
trite or rehearsed.

Casey slid out from beneath her sleeping
daughter, gently resting the girl's head on the cushion, and walked
toward me, motioning for me to follow her into Striker's bedroom.
She sat on the foot of his bed and looked up at me with those dull
eyes. I remained silent, giving her time to collect herself.

"First her brother, Tommy, and now her
father. How am I supposed to help her through this if I can't even
get myself through it? Dom was our rock." She cried into her
hands.

I fidgeted, rooted in place and unable to
command my feet to carry me to the devastated woman.

"I don't know what to say, Casey," I
admitted. "Your husband was a wonderful man. I didn't know him
well, but I know that from the bottom of my soul."

She looked up, smiling at the compliment.
"Thank you for that," she said. "He really was, you know, a
wonderful husband and father."

My feet carried me to her, and I knelt down,
looking up into her face. I heard the echo of Jake shifting
positions above us, and Casey looked up at the ceiling, almost as
if she were trying to see right through the thick steel.

"You need to find a way to keep it together,"
I told her. "Not only for your daughter, but for yourself. I've
been there. It's easy to fall so far into despair, but it's damn
near impossible to climb your way back from it."

She nodded with her chin trembling and tried
to will herself to stay strong.

"Get some rest. I'll go sit with Elorie."

Casey looked as if she wanted to protest, but
in the end she laid back on the mattress and curled herself into a
ball.

I stood in the throughway that connected the
two containers and looked to the open door leading to yet another
dark space. Pulling my small Maglite from my back pocket, I clicked
it on and shined it into the opening. Boxes were stacked along the
back wall. Curious, I crossed the middle container, not paying
attention to the others, and looked around.

Daphne was scratching at the bottom of the
door, whining to go out. I bent down and gave her a kiss. "Sorry,
girl, it's not safe out there for you. If you have to go, you're
going to need to do it in here. At least this time no one will get
mad about it." I tousled the hair on her head and stood again, my
joints aching.

The entire container was filled with boxes of
food and water. Striker had been a busy bee. I peered into one,
elated to find a package of Oreo cookies, and doing my best to stay
quiet, I opened the plastic wrapper and stuffed a cookie into my
mouth.

"Oh, sweet mother of cookies," I groaned, my
taste buds titillating with euphoric bliss. My tummy screamed for
milk to wash the cookie down, but I instantly grimaced at the
thought of month's-old sour milk. "Blech."

I took a cookie from the wrapper and snuck
over to where Vinny slouched on the floor. Careful to not make a
sound, I leaned over and began to move the cookie under his nose,
swinging it like a pendulum. His head slowly began moving side to
side, tracking the cookie. His eyes pinged open and he stared up at
me with an annoyed expression.

"Cookie?" I asked, shaking the delightful
treat in front of his face. His annoyance vanished and was replaced
with amazement as he snatched the cookie from my hand and gobbled
it down. The look on his face was priceless. I swear the kid had
just had a food orgasm—was that called a foo-gasm?

He looked behind me, alarm registering on his
face when he saw that Casey and her daughter were gone. I turned to
see what he was looking at. You couldn't be too careful these
days.

"Shit!" He swore.

"Relax," I told him, "Casey's lying down in
the other room. Elorie must have woken up and joined her mother.
Hey, by the way, where's Striker?"

"I don't know," he said, getting to his feet
and walking to the bedroom to check on the girls. "He was acting
weird when he came back down. He left out the door in the bedroom
without saying anything."

"What a dick move," I growled under my
breath.

Vinny turned back to me with concern clouding
his features. "The girl's not there."

"What do you mean she's not there?" I pushed
past him and peered into the room. Casey was sleeping, still curled
in a ball, but Elorie was nowhere to be found. I spun around,
hoping to find her somewhere in the room, but Meg was the only form
I saw.

"Get Jake," I ordered, closing the distance
to the bed and shaking Casey awake. "Casey, wake up."

The woman stirred and rolled over, rubbing
her puffy eyes and blinking a few times to bring the room into
focus.

"What is it?" She asked in a groggy
voice.

"It's Elorie," I said. "She's not here."

Like a fierce mama bear, she was up, stalking
the three attached containers and calling out for her daughter. Meg
startled awake, instantly alerted to danger. Vinny returned with
Jake, and the five of us stood in the center container all yelling
at once. Tension levels spiked when Casey started throwing out
accusations at Vinny and Jake for not watching her.

The woman stalked to the door with no regard
for her own safety. The door opened before she reached for the
handle, and Striker stepped inside, grabbing her by the arm when
she tried to lunge past him through the entry.

All the anger of the last two days erupted
from within me, and I got up in his face, poking my finger into his
chest. "Where the hell were you?" I screamed at him.

"Out," he responded. His one word answer
caused my rage to grow.

"We needed you!" I continued to shout.
"Elorie is missing!"

He backed himself against the wall until he
couldn't escape my wrath. I descended on him, pounding at his chest
until he pushed me and I fell over a milk crate, landing on my
ass.

Regardless of the fact that I'd just been
physically assaulting the jerk, Jake saw red. He leapt on him,
punching him square in the jaw. Striker dropped his shoulder and
went at Jake like a battering ram and they both fell to the floor
in a jumbled heap. Meg helped me to my feet and, grabbing Casey's
arm, we ran to the wall to get out of the way of the wrestling
men.

Striker sat above Jake, pinning him to the
floor and throwing punch after punch at him while we screamed at
them to stop. With an animalistic battle cry, Vinny charged,
effectively bringing Striker to the floor. No match for Vinny's
size and strength, Striker was unable to move under his weight.

"Enough!" Vinny yelled in the man's ear.

Striker stopped struggling and lay on the
floor panting heavily. I rushed to Jake, helping him to his feet
and looking him over.

"Are you okay? I asked. "Is anything
broken?"

He wiped the back of his hand across his lip,
and it came away bloody. "Just my pride," he admitted.

"You done?" Vinny asked Striker, not
loosening his grip on the man.

He nodded, and Vinny let him up. I glared at
Striker, daring him to look at me, but he couldn't meet my
gaze.

Turning to Casey, I said, "I need you to
think. Where would she go?"

"I…I don't know," she cried. "We're not from
this area."

"Wait!" said Meg. "Before she fell asleep,
you were arguing about something. Something about family
photos."

"Oh, God, that's it. The car. She went to the
car for the family album. She was so concerned that she would
forget their faces. I told her it wasn't safe out there."

* * *

Casey needed to be held back, pressed against
the wall by Jake and Vinny, while we discussed how to act. Running
off halfcocked would just get us killed.

The tension between the men was squashed and
they worked together as a cohesive unit.

Striker looked at me when he spoke. "I
grabbed everyone a bike from a container. It's the only reliable
form of transportation unless you want to go on foot."

"What are we waiting for?" shouted Casey, her
eyes wild and crazed. "My daughter is out there. We need to
go!"

I couldn't risk leaving Daphne behind— not
knowing when or if we'd return to the shipping yard—so I packed her
up and crossed the strap of her carrier around my shoulder.

The door swung open under Striker's weight,
stopping when it hit the wall of undead behind it. Arms groped the
opening, reaching for us. And the force of it shutting severed
fingers from various corpses.

"Shit!" he said. "There's too many of them.
We need to go the back way."

One by one we climbed through the roof hatch,
surveying the mob below. A few feet from the zombies were six
bikes. Six, not seven; this meant that Elorie must have taken
one.

"I'll distract them," volunteered Vinny. "You
guys grab the bikes when they follow me. I'll meet you at the
entrance."

"Stay frosty, bro," said Jake, giving his
brother an awkward man hug.

We dropped to the dirt behind the container,
moving in the opposite direction of Vinny. Striker and Jake kept
our path clear, eliminating any threats that got close. I heard
Vinny start to yell when he rounded the far corner of the row.

"Hey, assholes, look at me! It's dinnertime,
fuckers!" We hung back waiting for Vinny's cue, unfortunately close
to the pile of rotting corpses Striker had made over the last few
months. "Go! Get the bikes!"

We took off, darting down the aisle at an
all-out sprint for the bikes, running them far enough back to avoid
stragglers before getting on and pedaling to the entrance. Only
Striker remained on his feet, a bike in either arm as he trailed
behind us.