Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) (10 page)

At least for right now.

We needed a better standard of living. But
first we had to survive Mexico City.

Vaughan urged the van over a pile of concrete
debris that split the road from sidewalk to crumbled sidewalk. He
tried to be as gentle as he could while ignoring the protests from
the engine and the scraping sound on the underside of the vehicle.
I closed my eyes and held my breath until we reached the other
side. We would not survive without this van, but at the same time
there was no way to go but forward.

“Adela, do you know your way through the
city?” Vaughan asked. I heard the worry he tried to cover up and
convinced myself not to panic.

Her reply was simply, “We need to find
Tomás.”

“This is the stupidest thing we have ever
done!” Harrison growled from the backseat. “We should have looked
for another way.”

“There is no other way,” Adela bit out, her
accent thick with frustration. “This
is
the only way. You
are the ones that want to get out of Mexico. If that is what you
want, then this is what we must do.”

“And what would your plan be? What would you
have us do? Go back to America? Make us fit in with the Colony? I’m
sure they’d love to have us back, especially after we killed their
supreme leader.” Harrison was never easy on Adela. He couldn’t seem
to accept her, for reasons he refused to share with anyone. His
brothers had cautioned him about it multiple times, but he would
respond with silence and sulkiness until they gave up and left him
alone. Meanwhile, Adela constantly had to put up with his mistrust
and antagonizing teasing. He had never been anything but pleasant
and goofy to Haley, Tyler and me, but for whatever reason, he could
not make himself get along with Adela. I empathized with them
both.

“That is not what I am suggesting,” she
hissed at him.

She sat one row in front of him, but refused
to turn around and meet his angry gaze. I didn’t blame her.
Harrison was rarely scary, until he found something or someone he
didn’t like. Then he became one of the most intimidating men I had
ever met. And that was saying something, considering the rest of
his brothers.

“But you are suggesting something,” Harrison
prodded. “Aren’t you? There’s something you want to say, so say it.
Spit it out.”

I sensed Adela’s frustration build around
her. She took her time replying to him, as if she couldn’t decide
which words to use. It could have been a language barrier thing,
but I had the feeling she was trying to read Harrison and diffuse
his uncalled for anger.

Finally, she said, “I do not understand why
we must leave Mexico. There are places we could live that would be
safe. Diego would have given us any of the houses of the men we
killed. My father’s place or Arturo’s. They would have been enough
for us.”

The energy in the entire van deflated. It was
like someone had popped a hole in our balloon and let out a good
chunk of the air.

“What?” Adela whispered. “What am I missing?
The cure? You really believe that strongly we will be able to find
a cure?”

I suppressed the urge to look at Page. The
energy we had just lost started to build again. Layer by layer a
thick, buzzing tension filled the van and put all of us on
edge.

“Yes,” Nelson finally said. “We believe we’ll
be able to find a cure. Or at least help others that are more
qualified than us to find a cure.”

“How?” she whispered. “How can you be so
sure?”

Nelson let out a resigned breath. Harrison
jumped in to warn, “Nelson, don’t.”

“She’s one of us now,” Nelson challenged.
“She deserves to know.”

“Wait until we’re out of Mexico,” Harrison
argued furiously.

I turned around to shoot Harrison a
shut-up
look, only to see Adela beat me to it. “You don’t
trust me? After everything I have done for you?”

He shot her a cruel smirk. “Not even a little
bit.”

The rest of the Parker brothers exploded with
rebuke for their younger brother, while Tyler, Haley and I tried to
apologize to Adela. Lennon started crying from all of the noise and
Page looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Enough,” Vaughan shouted, silencing us all.
“Adela, one of us is immune to the infection. That is why we know
we can help find a cure. We’ve been bitten and survived without
turning into a Feeder.”

Heavy silence answered Vaughan’s admission. I
chanced a glance back at Harrison, only to find him staring out the
window with his arms crossed stiffly against his chest. Page sat on
one side of him squirming uncomfortably.

I looked at Adela to find her already
watching me. Her eyes widened and she mouthed the word several
times before she said, “Immune? Do I understand that word
correctly? It means… it means…”

Hendrix saved her stuttering by saying, “It
means that when the person is bit, they will not turn into a
Zombie. The infection only makes them very sick, but they can
survive it.”

“That’s… that’s…
impossible
!” She
slipped into her native tongue and mumbled for a while in a
language we didn’t understand. She glanced among us wildly and I
wondered if she was waiting for one of us to turn into a Zombie in
front of her.

“We thought so too,” Nelson said gently. “But
then it happened and… and we survived.”

“Who is it?” Adela demanded on a fierce
whisper. “Who is… immune?”

We looked at each other around the van and
waited for someone else to say the name. It wasn’t going to be me.
I would never put Page in a position where someone could exploit
her. But Nelson and Vaughan had been right to tell Adela why
getting to Colombia was so important for us. Adela was part of us
now and we had to trust her, just like she had to trust us.

“Me,” Page said bravely, taking the choice
away from all of us.

Harrison’s hand slammed down on her shoulder
and he pulled her close to his chest. “Page,” he winced.

Page looked up at him with an innocent
expression. “What? I’m not afraid to tell Adela. I like Adela!”

“But someone could use that against you.”
Harrison kissed the top of her head and said, “Someone could hurt
you.”

“Adela won’t,” Page declared. “I know she
won’t.”

Adela turned around in her seat and watched
Page for a few long moments before she said, “You were infected?
Something bit you?” I heard the catch in Adela’s voice, giving away
her concern.

We made the right choice in showing her that
we trusted her, even though our group did not share a
consensus.

“Yes,” Page whispered. Her eyes went blank as
if she were remembering that horrific time period and how sick
she’d gotten. “But I survived.”

Miller slid forward from the other side of
Harrison. “And she’s going to keep surviving. You’d better not even
think of trying to use that against her.”

Adela gave Miller a look of pure disdain.
“I’m not going to hurt the child.
Dios mio
! You and you are
loco
!” She pointed at Miller and Harrison and I could not
disagree with her.

Hendrix snickered next to me and I turned
back around to give him a raised eyebrow. “You don’t think this is
funny?” he whispered.

“Harrison acting like a complete douche? Uh,
no. Not even a little bit. Adela is going to hate all of us because
of him.” I tried to whisper, but…

“Hey!” Harrison yelled at me. “I heard
that!”

Hendrix tipped his head back and dissolved
into laughter while I tried not to feel bad for getting caught. It
was all true! He should know better.

“I would have shot you in the important man
parts if you talked to me like that when we first met,” I told him.
Hendrix laughed harder. Even Haley couldn’t hold in her giggle and
she had been desperately trying to get Lennon back asleep since we
woke him.

“Yeah, well you were different, Reagan.”
Harrison looked somewhat chastised.

At least until I said, “Would it help if one
of your brothers had a weird crush on her? Would that make it
easier to be nice?”

Harrison’s expression soured immediately.
Whatever I said truly pissed him off.

“I’ll volunteer!” King grinned. He shot Adela
a playful wink. “I have no problem taking this one for the
team.”

“Shut the hell up,” Harrison growled. “You
people are all idiots. This is so dumb.” He turned to look out the
window and speak quietly with Page.

“What?” King chuckled maliciously. “What did
I say?”

Adela turned around with raised eyebrows. I
knew she expected an explanation, but unfortunately I didn’t have
one.

I had no idea what was going on.

When I spun back around, I felt a little
queasy with guilt. “Should I apologize?” I whispered to Hendrix and
prayed the rumble of the rough road would drown out my voice.

Hendrix gave me a sideways glance and shook
his head. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “He’s got to figure it out
somehow and it’s not going to help if you coddle him.”

“Coddle him?”

Hendrix turned to face me fully and I could
see the twinkle of mischief dancing in his blue eyes. He swept a
chaste kiss over my semi-parted lips and stayed close to whisper,
“You’re as clueless as he is, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talk-”

“We should turn around,” Adela nearly
shouted. “I… I wasn’t paying attention. You must have taken the
wrong turn. This is not where we should be headed!”

Vaughan glanced at her over his shoulder
before explaining, “There wasn’t a wrong turn to take! This was the
only way the road would let me go. Everything else was destroyed or
blocked off.”

Adela started mumbling in Spanish again
before Vaughan demanded she tell him what was wrong.

“This is the road to the…
como se
dice
…? Slums. This is the road to the slums and it is not a
good place to go. I have heard stories…” Her voice trailed off as
the scenery around us changed.

I sucked in a gasp and felt my heart take off
in a sprint. The industrial buildings gave way to tightly packed
hovels that could barely stand. They practically stood on top of
each other as they filled every available space on the opposite
sides of the narrow streets.

Vaughan spun the van in a U-turn and urged
the van down a narrow street. The buildings did not get nicer. In
fact, they got worse.

Vaughan turned around again, but we couldn’t
seem to find our way out of this place. In the dark, we got turned
around and managed to lose ourselves in the cluster and confusion
of the ghetto.

The van barely fit between the piles of
garbage and dead bodies. The smell of death and decay was stronger
here than it had ever been. Looking out the window I saw an inky
stream of something coagulated and green slither down the road. The
moonlight hit off the surface and illuminated an oily texture that
I was certain could corrode anything that touched it.

“Sewage,” Adela explained when she saw most
of us staring at it. “That is their sewage.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to be sick. Of
course, there would be waste in an environment like this. We had
been lucky enough to live a transient enough lifestyle that we
didn’t have to worry about a permanent solution for our bodily
needs. But this was above and beyond any nightmare I could have
imagined.

“Is that just since the Apocalypse?” I asked
in a hoarse voice.

Adela’s voice dropped and I could barely hear
her over the engine. “That has been there for a long time. This
place has always been like this.”

“Turn around, Vaughan,” Hendrix demanded.

“I’m working on it!” Vaughan answered. He
glanced over his shoulder and back at the road, but there was
nowhere for him to go.

The side streets and alleys had been blocked
off and the road was too narrow for him to do anything but continue
moving forward. When he glanced over his shoulder again I knew he
was contemplating backing up the entire way.

I didn’t blame him.

This was seriously creepy. It was like they
were funneling us to them- whoever them was. These streets had been
strategically blocked off. I felt like a fly caught in a spider’s
web. We had walked right into this.

“Adela, who runs this place?” Vaughan asked
with a deceptively even tone.

“What do you mean?” Her words trembled as she
tried to cover her fear.

Vaughan looked over his shoulder again and
this time I followed his gaze. Red eyes glittered from behind piles
of trash. They stared up at me as they hovered over half-eaten
bodies and chunks of flesh.

Abruptly I realized the contaminated scent of
decay had gotten stronger. I hadn’t noticed at first because of the
putrid sewage and other smells of decomposition. But now that we
were this far in, I recognized the punch in the face of Feeder
rot.

Vaughan had been forced to slow down as the
streets progressively narrowed and more debris filled their already
rough surface. The engine had quieted as a consequence and I could
hear the dropping of limbs and bodies as the Feeders picked up our
fresh flesh. Their nails scraped over rusted metal, their moans
became frenzied and greedy.

We had willingly driven into a nest of
Zombies and not given ourselves a way out.

Holy shit!

Haley cradled Lennon closer to her chest. I
put my hand on the back of hers. Nelson, who sat on the other side
of her, tightened his hold on her shoulders. The van rippled with
movement as everyone readied their weapons.

Vaughan glanced back at Adela again, “Who
runs this place? Warlords? Cartel? Traffickers? What are we up
against other than Feeders?”

“All of them,” Adela panted. “They’re all
here. Before… before the infection, there were drugs and sex trade
and prostitution. All of it. This was one of the most corrupt
places on the planet and I do not think that has changed.” She was
silent for a minute. We all were. When she spoke again, I felt the
ominous tone in the marrow of my bones. “We should not have come
here,” she whispered.