Beautiful Death (Bella Morté Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

“I don’t know, honey girl. That looks like it’s gonna be a tighter squeeze than my girdle on a good day. I don’t see y’all pulling my big ass through that tiny hole. I’m gonna get stuck. That’s what I see.”

Tyler looked at the hole and back at Nell, and winced. “Sure you’ll fit, Nell. Suck in your breath, hold in your gut, and climb through!”

“Okay, I’m gonna try this.” She pushed off the chair with her feet.

Alexander didn’t think she was going to fit so he put his hands on her rear and pushed only she wasn’t budging.

“Boy, don’t be touching my ass!” She screamed, looking back down into the bus. “I think I can get this done a lot faster without someone grabbing my ass!”

He pulled back, holding his hands in the air. “Damn Nell, it wasn’t like I was grabbing you for a feel down. I was trying to help.”

“I think I can get through here without all that touching! I’ll do it myself.” She pushed off with her foot only she wasn’t going anywhere. After a few minutes, she sighed. “Well if you’re gonna help, then push me up!”

Tyler and Alexander tried to push her only she was stuck. Both of them gave it everything they had. Tyler had his back in it with one side of her buttocks positioned on his back. Alexander pushed his shoulders into the other side of her rear.

Tyler groaned as he stopped pushing, panting, shaking out his hands. “It’s no use. She’s not budging.”

Nell shook her head. “Didn’t I say I was gonna get stuck? You people should listen to me every once in a while. A woman knows the size of her hips better than a man.”

Jessi nodded. “She’s got a point.”

Dani looked at the half of the Nell sticking out and tried to assess the situation. “Okay boys, you push from down ‘ere, an’ we’ll pull up here.”

Alexander motioned to Charles. “Get your ass over here and help. You ain’t anyone special.”

Charles walked over, rolling his eyes. “Damn, I didn’t think it was going to take the three of us to push her through.”

“I heard that,” Nell said. “Boy, don’t you make me have to knock some sense into your head. You see a big ol’ woman and a little bitty hole, you know damn well it’s gonna take all y’all.”

“What if she took off her pants?”

Vince looked around, nodding. “If all else fails, she might have to take off her pants.”

Nell shook her head. “I’m not taking off my pants, y’all bunch of perverts. This is just your way to get a woman out of her drawers.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “Trust me. We aren’t trying to get you out of your pants.”

“It sure sounds like it to me!”

“Well your hearing’s off.”

Dani prepared to pull. “Concentrate Nell. Get ready. Okay guys. We’re in place so tell us when you’re ready.”

The three men positioned themselves under the big hulk of the woman. None of them looked happy. Charles planted his hands on her butt, Tyler, and Alexander put their backs against the other sides.

Tyler took a deep breath. “Everybody push!”

The boys pushed as hard as they could. Dani and Vince pulled and Jessi held on to her purse, cheering them on, encouraging them that they could do this. No matter how much they pushed and pulled, she didn’t budge an inch. Even Jessi stopped cheering because it looked hopeless.

Nell twisted. “Quit squeezing my ass. Y’all gonna give me a damn wedgie!”

Tyler grunted, yelling out in pain. “Gotta… get… you… up!”

“And y’all are about to pull my arms right off!”

After ten minutes of pushing, pulling, and Nell griping, they finally pulled her through the hole. It was such a sudden jolt that the men fell backwards, over the seats, and on to the floor, while Vince and Dani almost fell off the bus.

“Whoa,” Jessi said, watching the two scramble to stay on.

Charles sat up, looking through the hole. “Oh thank God! Can we take a ten-minute break? I swear my arms are about to fall off.”

“Whew, and you pulled me up with my pants still on!” Nell said happily, retrieving her purse. “Thank you, baby.”

Alexander growled. “It might’ve been a lot faster if you’d helped out us out a little sooner. It was like moving a killer whale out of a puddle onshore and back in the ocean.”

Charles shook his head. “No, that might’ve been easier because we could’ve rolled her over.

“I heard that!” Nell yelled. “Don’t think I won’t whoop your ass once we get where we’re going.”

He shook his head, climbing through the roof. “I don’t doubt that one bit.”

Once everyone was out, Vince closed the hatch, leading the way down. He helped each one with the jump to the floor. Nell just slid down.

Dani looked at them. “Okay, I know ya have a lotta questions. God knows when I first found out, I did. However, let’s wait till we get up to safety.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and slowly moved through the store. Dani led the way while Vince checked behind them, making sure nothing followed. They ran to the back stairs and up onto the roof as quickly as possible. Soon enough, they piled through the door, looking around like scared children.

Charles looked around. “So, what are we supposed to do now just hang out on the roof? I mean, how long can we do that?”

Alexander nodded. “Yeah, who’s gonna find us up here?”

Tyler glanced around before turning back to Dani. “How do we call our family and let them know what’s going on when there’s no cell service? Do you have one of those satellite phones?”

Jessi nudged him. “I think it only works with other satellite phones.”

“Oh yeah, I guess so.”

Nell looked at the door. “Who the hell is gonna clean up that mess down there?”

Vince dropped the backpack off to the side. “Look folks, I realize you’re all afraid, confused and just pretty messed up right now. However, we’re going to make this building safe again. We’re going to bring up supplies and turn this roof into your camp. It will be safer than the store, but we’re going to fix that too.”

Charles looked from one to the other. “We are?”

Vince motioned to Dani and himself. “No,
we
are. Dani and I will go down and bring up the supplies you’ll need. No one else is going in the store until we tell you it’s safe.”

“Okay, I’m fine with that.”

Dani motioned to the group. “Okay, this is the plan. This is gonna be where we live for a while. We’ll be bringin’ back more survivors as we find ‘em. What I need from the rest o’ you is to make this our home.”

Nell arched a brow. “How are we going to make a roof our home?”

“We’re gonna bring up tents an’ other campin’ supplies. It’s up to you guys to make sure it’s done right. Coolers an’ grills’ll go in the dinin’ slash kitchen area where the picnic table should be located. The bigger an’ medium tents will be for people to sleep in. It’s not gonna be co-ed either, men in one an’ women in the other. We’ll need smaller tents made into bathrooms with buckets an’ toilet seats, toilet paper, an’ trashcans. We’ll make one for peein’ an’ the other for, well ya get my meanin’. The trashcan will be for burnin’ materials such as toilet paper. One tent’ll be for urine since that’s easily disposed an’ the other located far away from the rest o’ us, which’ll be disposed of at another location.”

Tyler raised his hand. “Will one of you are going to fill us in on what we saw when we’re finished?”

“I’ll teach ya everything ya need to know. Now, get ready to be very busy.”

Once they headed back down the stairs to the store, Vince smiled at Dani. “I don’t have to worry about you.”

“What do ya mean?”

“You seem like you got this under control. Once I help you make this place safe again, I’ll be on my way.”

“So soon?”

“You got this. I’ll give you an earpiece so you can get a hold of me. All of your leaders will have one so you can keep in touch with them.”

She nodded. “Okay. I think I can handle this.”

“I’m sure you can.”

They brought the supplies up, which practically emptied the store downstairs. Once they finished, everyone pitched in, arranging things on the roof. Nell took charge, telling them where everything should go. Dani and Vince went back for cleanup. The two of them cleaned house, taking the dead out of the store, as well as off the bus.

Dani groaned after tossing another body into the bed of the truck. “Okay, I’m not sure I can handle this part,” she said, wiping her bloody hands on the towel.

“This is all part of being the leader and keeping your people safe.”

“Yeah, well this part sucks.”

Once they piled all the dead in the truck, Vince drove it around the block. He found a spot well away from the store. While he was gone, Dani grabbed some lumber and began to close off the hole. Once she was finished, she reinforced it with some ready-made concrete she found. One thing about them crashing through the Walmart was that they had everything they needed right there at the fingertips. She covered the wood until there wasn’t even the tiniest of holes, globbing it on nice and thick. When she finished, she grabbed the cleaning supplies and cleaned up.

Vince wasn’t gone long and when he returned he helped with the cleaning. It took a few hours, but once everything was finished the two walked back up to the roof.

He grabbed a bottle of water. “The store is safe again, but I still wouldn’t suggest you go down there unless you absolutely have to.”

Nell nodded. “Oh honey, you don’t have to tell us that twice.”

They had done exactly what Dani asked and she looked around pleased. Tyler declared himself King of the Grill and cooked hot dogs and baked beans for the group since they were all hungry.

Grabbing a plate, Dani sat down at the dining table they set up, which was a picnic table and the others joined, watching her. Vince too watched as he slowly ate.

Not one to sugarcoat anything, Tyler took a bite of his hotdog. “Okay, so how did all this start?”

Dani looked up at Vince who winked at her. This was it. It was time for her to start being the leader. Slowly she nodded at him. Setting her plate to the side, she picked up her backpack, pulling out the folder. Opening it, she passed it around; one picture at a time just like Vince had done with her. “Well, believe it or not, it was a flower that started all of this. A flower named Bella Morté, which is Italian for Beautiful Death.”

Twenty-Two

It was two days after Vince left that Dani caught the scent of something in the air. She breathed in once, twice, and then a third time before smiling, looking around. “Oh my God! Do you smell that?” She breathed in deeper.

Tyler breathed in, scrunching up his nose. “Yeah, it smells like shit. I wonder if we’ll ever have days where we get to smell that watermelon aroma of freshly-cut grass.”

“My grass never smelled like watermelons. No, it’s almost like the cotton candy they used to sell at the amusement parks. It’s so sweet an’…”

Smirking, he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. “Yeah, I want whatever you had this morning. I still smell the same thing I’ve smelled since this thing started. It smells like some serious shit.”

“I’m drawn to it. It’s like… I want more. I have to find it.”

Turning, he furrowed his brows. “It could be a trap of some kind. Maybe one of the Brainiacs figured out a way to draw out the hunters?”

“How the hell could they do that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but for you to smell something that you’re drawn to that’s sweet that the rest of us can’t smell? I think we should double up on security.”

“Oh stop worryin’. Ooh, then again Vince did say I would know when another person had passed the virus curse.”

Looking down on the street, perched at his security point, Tyler shrugged. “So call Vince and find out what it is and what you should do about it.”

“No, he just left. I don’t wanna bother him with a bunch o’ worthless questions.”

“It’s not worthless. You’re still learning what to do so it could be something important.” He aimed his rifle, pulled the trigger, and one of the diseased walking on the street dropped dead. “There’s no such thing as stupid questions just stupid mistakes.”

“Are you gonna cliché me to death?”

“You damn right, if that’s what it takes.”

Sighing, she put her gun down at her feet, clicking the blue tooth in her ear. “Dani to Vince.”

There was a short pause. “What’s up, Dani? Is everything okay?”

“Oh yeah, everything’s great. We’re still good an’ have a few new members to tell you about when I check in.”

“Good. Glad to hear it, so what’s up?”

“Well, you’re gonna think this is weird. Trust me. I think it’s weird an’ it’s happenin’ to me, but I smell cotton candy. I was gonna leave it alone, but you know Tyler. He just won’t let this go an’ was adamant I should call you.”

Tyler smirked. “Oh yeah, blame me for everything.”

Vince snickered. “Tyler was right to have you call me. In fact, this was probably something I should’ve told you about.”

“Is it a good somethin’ or a bad somethin’?”

“What you smell right now is another one like you who you’re attracted to. Chances are he’s gotten a whiff of you too and is very curiously seeking you out as well.”