Beyond the Barriers (16 page)

“Weird. I can’t picture the end of the world like that.”

“It wasn’t really the end. I mean, it isn’t now either. It’s like a bump in the road. Do you believe in evolution?”

That was a funny question. I was not a liberal, yet I couldn’t say that I was a religious man either. I needed explanations for stuff; I needed to see things to believe in them. The idea that there was some god sitting above me constantly judging my actions and planning to roast my ass in hell if I screwed up didn’t make sense. Then again, neither did the dead walking around.

“I think so. People have been changing for thousands of years, getting taller, losing their need for wisdom teeth, stuff like that.”

“And the ghouls are the natural offshoots of the zombies. The virus that reanimated the dead and created the mindless things, well, it affected the living in strange ways. It made them like a half-zombie hybrid.”

“What started it all?” I had never asked that question. Never really had anyone to ask it of.

“No one is really sure. Lots of theories but no answers. Some said it was a swine flu vaccine that went wrong, some said it was terrorists. Some said it was a comet strike stirring up weird stuff in the air. Space spores or something. We spent that whole first week listening to the news channels, talking, theorizing, but we never heard a real cause.”

“Someone has to know.”

“Maybe it is a form of evolution—a shifting bacterial infection that found a way to get rid of us. AIDS didn’t work; the black plague tried it; Ebola was a huge success. Maybe all those antibiotic-resistant monsters got together and figured out a way to kick our ass.”

“I like your ass right where it is.” I pushed myself against her as the rain came down harder than before. It rolled down the side of the house and splashed on the ground, making an ocean of noise.

Lightning lit the sky, and a glance out the window showed tall skeletons in the form of the trees surrounding the cabin. The air felt like it was charged. All those ions bouncing around from the flashes of light in the sky made my hair stand on end. Or maybe it was her shifting against me, under the covers, in that tiny bed.

“Is that right?”

I pushed the mess of hair off her forehead and kissed it gently. She offered me a smile in return. Those hard lines around her eyes softened for a moment, and I felt a genuine sense of affection.

“What did you do before?” I asked. We didn’t really talk about who we’d been before the incident. I think it was a byproduct of our current situation. I believe that, on some level, we were avoiding the ‘before’ because we wanted to concentrate on the now and not on our old lives. Those were long gone.

“I was a teacher. Social studies was my specialty, but I also taught girls’ volleyball.”

“Makes sense. You fight like a teacher.”

She laughed at that, and I smiled at her in the dark.

“I used to study a lot of martial arts. I took some kaji-kempo, and then some other stuff so I could work on my aggression issues. I had …”

I let it hang. I could hear her breathing in the dark, and she stiffened slightly against me.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s okay. I was hurt once by a man, and I swore that would never happen again, so I learned how to take care of myself.”

I stiffened under the blanket, my body going rock hard as tension primed me for violence. How dare a man lay a hand on a woman in anger. He’d better hope to hell he was long gone from her life in this new world.

“I’m sorry,” I offered lamely. I found I couldn’t let the tension go.

“It was a long time ago, and I usually don’t talk about it.”

“I’m sorry.” I took a couple of breaths to calm down.

“Anyway, I studied and I never feared a person again. Well, until I saw those ghouls and how much damage they can take before they go down.”

“Evolution again?”

“Something like that. They feel pain, and they fall if you shoot them in the head, but a wound just pisses them off. Some are smarter than others, and some are in control. The ones that came at us at the barricade were driven by one of the smart ones. You may think I’m crazy, but we had a theory that the smart ones used some sort of mind control.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“They seem to be able to put the ghouls into some sort of hypnotic state. They whip them into a frenzy, and they go crazy for blood. Did you see how they attacked us?”

She was right; they didn’t act like the zombies at all. Of course, I only had a few days’ worth of experience with the things, while she’d had months. I suppose a form of hypnosis wasn’t that much of a stretch. Look how far it got Hitler.

We chatted for a while longer, and she shifted under the blankets against me but didn’t seem interested in lovemaking. I was just happy to have her with me, so I didn’t press it. Her body was warm against mine, a feeling completely alien to everything I’d known for the last few months. I wrapped my arm around her and, sometime in the night, found solitude in sleep.

* * *

Morning came in with the same overcast gray. I struggled up to a sitting position and noticed she had put on a shirt sometime during the night. Katherine slept soundly while I rose and donned shorts and a tank top. The night may have been cold and rainy, but the day was already heating up. My watch was in the kitchen, and I was surprised to see it was after nine. When I was at the compound, we usually woke around seven, but at the cabin I was used to sleeping in—an indulgence I hadn’t allowed myself in years.

I dug out some coffee we’d scrounged from the convenience store and built up a fire in the stove. Water boiled, while I used my old method of suspending the grounds in a wrapped-up paper towel and letting it sit for a while. The water passed through my crude filter as it cooked, and within fifteen minutes, I had a fresh pot of Folgers. I grabbed a box of cereal, Lucky Charms, popped it open and sat down to enjoy breakfast.

She came out of the bedroom a half hour later and joined me. Her long legs hung out of the shirt, and she curled one under her body as she sat down. I felt a rush for her—a burst of emotion I could not readily identify. It was a combination of giddiness and warmth, and I wished I could put the feeling into words.

She smiled when I brought her a cup of coffee.

“Cream or sugar?”

“Neither. I’m used to drinking it black. We had a whole section of coffee saved up during the setup phase at the Walmart, and it was almost as closely guarded as the guns.”

“Priorities and all ...”

I was still getting used to drinking coffee again, having been without it for a few months. I got a quick caffeine buzz today because the brew was dark and very strong. I expected her to turn her nose up at the stuff and tell me it was too thick, but she took a sip, and then another without comment.

She mixed some of the powdered milk with water from a pitcher on the counter and poured it in a bowl with the cereal I was eating. I watched her move around the kitchen looking for things, and I pointed out where I stored items. If I expected her to comment on my placement, I was in for a surprise, because she accepted what I had done and went along without a word.

We ate in silence, glancing back and forth between our food and each other. I smiled more than once, and she returned a tight grin.

“How did you find this place?” she asked.

“It was a friend’s. I stayed here once with Allison, and it seemed like a good place to hide out while I waited for the world to go to hell.”

“Who is Allison?”

“Ex. We came here about five years ago and stayed for a week.”

She didn’t comment.

“So what would you like to do today, honey?” She tacked the last word on with a hint of sarcasm that got a grin out of me.

“I’m concerned about food. The main reason I left the cabin was because I was out, and the stuff we picked up on the way back won’t last long. We need to figure out how to survive.”

“I have a few ideas.”

“Oh yeah?”

* * *

Six long sticks poked out along the lake’s edge; bobbers of pinecones and chunks of wood hovered on the calm water while we sat and watched. A bucket of fresh water stood next to the poles in case we caught anything. I had my doubts. During the months I had spent here, I had caught maybe seven or eight fish.

I had dressed in jeans and left the tank top on. She didn’t have any clothes to speak of. Everything she owned had been left behind in the store. The plan had been to rejoin the caravan as it moved away from the city. We didn’t count on getting caught in the mess at the barricade.

So she wore one of my shirts like a dress and looped a piece of rope around her waist. Her pants were soaking in a tub of water with a little bit of soap. She and I set the fishing poles, then dragged down the little chairs from inside the cabin and sat them on the wet ground. The legs sank into the mud, but we were content to sit on rickety chairs as long as we could watch the poles.

We spoke a little, but for the most part, we just stared at the water. The gulf that separated us was in full effect again, and I wondered if it was I who was holding back.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I offered.

“Penny isn’t worth much these days.”

“It wasn’t worth much a year ago either.” I smiled.

“I don’t know what to do. I’m used to being busy, organizing, teaching the others to fight. I’m used to cleaning guns, rationing supplies. There isn’t really much to do here.”

“Except me,” I said with a leer.

“And there is that. I know there’s an attraction, but I’m old, Erik. I can’t have kids anymore, and in this new world, we need to repopulate, to replace the numbers we have lost.”

“You think I’m gonna run off with someone younger than me just because she can have babies? That’s just plain stupid, Katherine. I like you. I like being with you.”

“For now. I am a sad and empty girl. I loved the world more than anything, and then the world took away everything that meant anything to me. I hate it now, and if I died tomorrow in a gunfight, who would remember me? No one, and that’s just fine with me.”

“I’d remember you for the rest of my life,” I said, my voice choked with emotion.

“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to be practical.”

“Damn your practical. I’m happy to be with you for as long as you’ll have me.” I stood up and went to her, took her hands in mine. They were slim and cold, and I felt the edges of the hard calluses on the sides. Drawing her up to me, I hugged her tightly.

“Got one,” she yelled and slipped away. She grabbed the pole with the bobber that had been tugged underwater, hauling out a hard-looking little fish that resembled a catfish. After pulling it up, she ran her hand along the head to hold down the fin, then she took the hook out of its mouth and put it in the bucket.

I smiled at the thing as it swam in circles looking for a way out. We had dug out some worms and grubs and put them in the empty breadbox, so we would have a fresh supply ready all day. The hook went back in the water, and she took a seat to watch the poles. That was how we spent our first day together.

It was coming up on the hottest part of the day when she stripped off her shirt and tossed her panties at me. I hung them on the back of my chair and marveled at her body in the daylight. She stepped into the water, having moved the fishing poles aside, hooks removed and stuck in a branch so we could find them easily.

I shrugged out of my tank top and let my pants join hers. I followed her, and when my feet hit the water, I gasped. It was hot out, but this was very cold water. She flashed a smile at me then moved deeper, so the calm surface came up to her knees.

“Come on and catch me.” Some of the tension went out of her, and I followed. She dashed one way as I closed in, and then the other way when I reached for her. She stepped back, and I moved after her. Her eyes gleamed in the fading light, and I felt a rush of emotion for her once again that was hard to explain. The analytical side of me understood that I had a need to protect her, to watch out for her even though I had seen that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

I sank to my ass and felt my pride shrivel up between my legs. She splashed water at me and I splashed back. A pair of birds flitted across the surface of the water behind her, then fled to the trees. I wished I had a way to catch them.

Her nipples were hard as little rocks when I caught her and pulled her close. We kissed, and I held her to me so she couldn’t get away. The water settled around us, and I thought about making love to her right there, but suspected it was too cold to try, though things below hinted that I was up for the challenge.

“You caught me. Now what are you going to do with me?” She smirked.

“I guess you’re mine now. I think I get to do whatever I like. I mean, as long as you, you know, want me to,” I finished lamely.

“That stuff I told you about was a long time ago, Erik. I trust you.”

“I’m glad.”

I stared past her at the far shore, because I thought I had seen movement. A shape that was vaguely manlike moved into the woods, but maybe it was just an animal. I stared for a long time, and she turned in my arms to follow my gaze.