Will To Live (17 page)

Everything seems normal.
Just how it should be.
 

“
You.” He let's out a snort. “You are so damned predictable. We'd already talked to Nick, so we knew you would be throwing a fit to rush out. The conversations you may have overheard when you sat down, were not the same ones you would have heard before you came in the room. Were your ears burning?” The ass laughs again, and my face – not my ears – burns with embarrassment.
 

Yeah, whatever. So they know me a little too well. Saved me from having to waste energy on a fight then, didn't it?

I ignore Will as I finish dressing, then I stomp out of the room, slamming the door maybe a little too hard when I leave, but his laughter just rises in volume to follow me down the hall and to the stairs. I find everyone else outside loading their bags and weapons into four of the Hummers.

The people going with us are: Ricky and Kally, Ryder and Coco, Nick, Bo, Ash, Gage, Joel, Andy and his wife, Lindey, and Dad Rex. I send a glare Dad's way to let him know that
I
know what he's done. He looks away pretty quick and makes a big deal out of putting his gun in the truck.
 

I walk down the stairs and talk to the others as we wait for Will. Finally, he comes out with a large bag of clothes and a duffel bag full of weapons. As he passes by me, he throws out under his breath that he hopes I liked that granny gown I had to wear when I arrived because, since I made him do all the packing, that's all he's packed for me.

I smirk at his retreating back, knowing damn well he's full of shit.

Or at least, I hope so.

The smirk dies slowly as I resist the urge to check and make sure, and instead, force myself into the back seat of the nearest Hummer. Everyone else loads up, and we slowly make our way to the front gate.

Will and I sit in the middle seat of the truck, and our boys sit in the back. We spend most of the first hour catching up with each other, tears flowing easily...at least for me. Eventually, we run out of things to say and just lean back in our seats, watching the land go by, each alone with our own thoughts. Ryder and Coco are in the front seat of our truck and, every so often, their voices float back to us.

Outside, I notice now what I didn't notice when I came through yesterday, that the majority of the vehicles that had been blocking the road have been moved to the sides. The highway is littered with both walking dead and
really
dead
corpses. The living dead get excited when they hear or see us, but they're no match for our speed or the Hummer's protection.
 

We pass a few vehicles traveling north. The faces of the passengers, for the most part, are filled with resignation and acceptance, weariness and caution. A few still clearly carry the fear on their faces that we all feel, but the rest of us know it does us no good to waste energy on that one emotion alone. Some wave back at us, some avoid eye contact and speed up, which makes me wonder what their stories are.

Are they afraid we'll rob them of whatever they might have stuffed in their vehicles? Have they learned the hard way because of people that have already done that to them?

Sometimes, people suck. I think I've mentioned that before.

I wish we could put up signs telling people about our place, no one should have to be trying to make it in this world alone. But because of the evil
living
predators, how can we? We would have every killer, rapist, thief, and God only knows who else, showing up.
 

We head back toward Missouri, searching each town we come to. It takes hours just to gain a dozen miles.
 

On one hand, I wish I had had more time to stay home and just relax, or as much as a person can in this new life we've been thrown into.
On the other hand, I really do want to find Vicki...a
nd that damn Amy.
 

Oh, yeah. I haven't forgotten what she did. In shock or not, that was bullshit. She could have killed not just me, but all of us.

It's almost dark, so we decide to stop at a motel on the edge of a fairly small town. The motel has a second floor, so maybe we can get some sleep without having to worry too much about being eaten alive.

Except for Will and Dad Rex, who head to the office to find keys, the rest of us carry bags of clothes and weapons to the upper floor. Once the doors are unlocked and the rooms checked for surprises, I get my boys settled into the last room, make them promise to lock the door, then I carry mine and Will's bags into the room next door to them. Will is downstairs with a couple of the other guys, and are moving the trucks to the back where they aren't as easily seen from the highway.

I find clean washrags and towels in the bathroom and take a few minutes to wash the dirt and grime off of myself. Will is reclined on the bed when I walk back into the main room, his legs straight out in front of him and his arms resting behind his head against the wall.

He grins at me and holds one hand out. I grab hold, give him my own grin – which may or may not have been full of a little mischief – then jump as hard as I can on the bed, making him shout when he almost goes flying off the side. I roll with laughter at the look of terror on his face as his body is moved against its will. He growls at me, then begins to tickle me, which I frikken hate!

I fight back, knowing all his sensitive tickle spots. Eventually, we both collapse in exhaustion, and he takes me in his arms. I bring my hand up and run it over his newly formed muscles, amazed at how big he's gotten since I'd been gone. Me being me, because I love to embarrass my hubby, and also because I really am a little curious about what else may have gotten bigger, I check.

“
What are you doing?” Will asks as I pull his underwear away from his body and look down.
 

“
Oh, just seeing if anything else has gotten bigger.”
 

He gives a shocked laugh. “Well?”

I cough to hide the giggle at the worry in his voice, and turn my head into his chest.

His body tenses and I grin, since I'm safely hidden from view.

“
Damn it, Canada! Answer me,” he growls at me.
 

I swallow back the laughter bubbling up my throat, and convert my face into a serious expression, before I look up at him. I almost lose it again when I see the panic on his face, but manage to control myself. “Yes, babe?”

“
What the hell!”
 

“
What?” I ask innocently.
 

“
Ugh. Never mind. You're a pain in my ass,” he mumbles.
 

I know he's too shy and embarrasses much too easily to actually ask, which makes it all the more amusing to me. After listening to him huff and puff a few times, I finally ease his mind...and ego.

“
Looks as perfect as ever, honey!”
 

He grumbles about how I should have answered right away because now he doesn't believe me, but I can still clearly hear the manly pride in his voice, all the same.

Then he shows me exactly how perfect he really is, and exactly how much I've missed everything about him.

I'm sleeping better and more deeply than I have in months, when I'm suddenly yanked back to the real nightmare. Moans of
way
too many rotting monsters drift through the thin walls and windows of our room. Frantic pounding on the wall that separates us from our boys starts in. Will knocks back and tells the boys as loud as he dares to stay inside, and to stay quiet. We here a muffled “Okay,” then we both scramble from the bed, sheets flying everywhere.
 

Will and I dress in a hurry then peek out the curtain covering the large front window. The amount of undead on the ground outside is mind-blowing! The entire town seems to be here, a couple hundred, at least.

“
Holy shit, Will! What the hell are we going to do now?” I whisper.
 

“
Not sure yet. I wonder what attracted them here?”
 

“
Hell if I know. We weren't very noisy, and we only saw a few wandering around when we went through town.”
 

“
I'm going outside.” Will tells me suddenly.
 

I grab tight to his arm. “Will, no!”

Will looks back at me, his eyes shooting daggers into my head. “Right. We both know you plan to go out yourself. So just shut up and come on.”

I release his arm and sit back on my knees. At first, I feel a bit hurt at the way he snaps at me, but then I shrug and crawl toward him because, let's face it, he's right.

Will stays low to the ground as he slowly opens the door just enough for him to look out. I hear him swear before he finally opens the door wide enough for us to go through. Out on the walkway, we get as close to the cement half-wall with all the stupid designs cut out of it as we dare. I look down at the parking lot through a cut-out of a palm tree, then close my eyes tight, resisting the urge to scream in fear and frustration.

Now what are we going to do?
 

I hear shuffling behind us and I immediately turn, ready to fight. It takes me a few seconds to realize that it's the rest of the family, coming toward us at a crawl.

It's actually kinda freaking creepy. No noise but the sliding of their clothes against the pebbled concrete, their eyes focused intently on Will and me. I fight against the urge to kick Gage in the face when he gets too close to me. Funny how your sensitivity for creepy heightens in the middle of an already terrifying event.

Gage, and his still-pretty face unmarred by my boot, makes it to my side where he stays silent as he looks upon the massive undead below. The others crowd around us and I hear muffled gasps and curses once they get the full view.

“
Well, this kinda sucks,” Dad Rex says low enough for only the closest few to hear.
 

“
Yeah. Kinda does,” I respond.
 

“
We can always blow them up,” Gage offers, a little too excitedly.
 

I can see now why he's the leader of a bomb squad. If he weren't, I'm sure he'd have been sitting in prison most of his life.

To my surprise, Will looks at Gage and says, “Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's blow these bitches up.”

He follows Gage back to the room that Joel and Gage had been staying in, and I recover from the shock of hearing my passive husband turn into a zombie-killing machine, and finally follow them. I ask Coco and Lindey to stay with my boys as I pass by them on the walkway. They nod and head that way, while the others turn and follow me.

Once inside the room, we stand on our feet like humans should, and wait for Gage to finish dragging out all his bags. He's got at least a good dozen: leather, duffel, thick padded cases, and odd-shaped ones too. One by one, he opens them up and reveals all kinds of items that, to me, look like just a bunch of odds and ends. Fascinated, I watch intently as he shows Will how to put all that mess together to make a very scary weapon. They look so innocent, just a bunch of metallic balls about the size of softballs really, with complicated insides. It's a little hard to see the threat in these things.

After they get a half dozen assembled, we all head back out onto the walkway. Dozens of fears run through my head, like,
will the walkway collapse under one of the bombs and kill us all? Will one go off prematurely up here with us? What if we throw them, but few, if any, actually explode? What if those little things only take out a couple of the zombies, but leave the rest? We could no longer pretend not to be here, and I'm sure the undead would never give up and leave then.
 

Before we ever get to alleviate,
or confirm
,
my fears, a piercing scream comes from close by. Startled, we all stop, quickly scramble away from the edge, and lean our backs against the building. I'm only there for a few seconds before I begin crawling so fast down the walkway to my kids' room that I don't even feel the layers of skin rip from my palms. I don't feel my knees where the concrete first tears away the fabric of my pants before taking a few layers of skin from there too. I only have one thought on my mind...
 

My babies!

When I reach their room and burst inside the door, I find both boys and their aunts sitting across the room, behind the bed, with their backs pressed against the wall. Both of my sisters-in-law have an arm wrapped around one of my boys. The overwhelming feeling of relief that they are all fine, almost makes me pass out.

I collapse on the bed because either way, I'm going to pass out!

After a few moments of remembering how to breathe, I look back up at them and make eye contact with first Lindey, then Coco.

“
Who
was
that
, Canada?” Lindey asks me.
 

“
I have no idea. I don't even know where it came from. I was terrified it came from here,” I explained.
 

“
Nope. Wasn't us,” Coco tells me.
 

I drop my head back down on the bed until a new fear propels me back out the door at a full-speed run, stopping just inside the doorway long enough to tell them to stay inside and that the screams weren't from anyone in our group.
 

Back out on the balcony, I crawl to the edge and peek over. The zombies are becoming frantic, their moans so loud I doubt they could hear us up here even if we all screamed at the same time. So if the mysterious screamer
is still screaming, we can't hear it to know it.
 

Then I realize the zombie's attention is focused solely on a room below us. The frenzy of mad hunger is going through the crowd in a ripple effect, causing the zombies to push hard into each other, all intent on getting inside that room.

And who says they haven't gotten in yet. Everything inside me is screaming for me to help, to do whatever the hell I can...to do
something
!