Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) (31 page)

Oliver frowned and I noticed his pale green
eyes for the first time. They were startling in their lightness.
They contrasted noticeably against his tanned skin. “I can’t say
for sure, of course. But you’ve opened doors that were closed
before. We have more tools at our disposal. It will take work,
definitely
. We’ll have to find
more subjects. We’ll need to draw quite a bit of blood from those
that feel they’re immune. We'll have to dive into this work and
determine not to give up. But… but, yeah, I think it’s
possible.”

“Incredible,” I whispered. I still didn’t
believe it
entirely
. I would have
to see it first. I would have to see results and experience how
these people worked.
I would have to make
sure my loved ones weren’t taken advantage of and that we remained
truly safe... but it was finally starting to set in that we were
really here, that we had arrived.
We could
begin
the second part of our journey now. We
could officially
begin
cleaning
this damn mess up.

Oliver gave me a gentle smile and said,
“What’s really incredible is that you found us. After everything
you’ve been through and how coincidental it was to run into our
associates… It’s a miracle you made it here. It’s quite
amazing.”

I was struck speechless by his words. These
were thoughts I
often had.
They
were
pretty much
on a constant
loop inside my head, but it was his use of the word “miracle” that
caught me.

In the past, and especially over the last few
weeks, I had been looking at our lot in life as a curse. I had
blamed God for our injustices, for our losses, for our pain. I
shook my fist at the heavens and screamed, “You did this to me! I
blame you!”

But it was wrong.

I
was wrong.

We had lost. We had grieved. We had gone from
one horrible problem to the next, and yet we survived.

We weren’t cursed to have lasted this long;
we were blessed. And it wasn’t a plague relegated to our lives; we
were living, breathing miracles.

God hadn’t punished us, He had saved us.

We lost some good people along the way, but
there was a purpose. It might not ever be enough. This pain might
not ever go away. But there was life amidst the suffering. We had
cultivated truth and hope and something worthy.

And for now that was enough.

“There’s a lot more to talk about, but how
about you get something to eat first, yeah?” Oliver’s eyes shone
with kindness and even while I knew I would never trust him
entirely
, I started to believe he
didn’t want to kill us.

Hendrix took my hand and pulled me to a
table. “I should warn you,” he said gently, “you’re about to eat
something you actually need. It’s not a candy bar or a random
canned good that expired three years ago. It’s something you might
actually want right now.”

I looked up at him, confusion clouding my
face. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“Say thank you,” he smiled. Page stepped
forward and held out a can of soup that looked suspiciously like
chicken
noodle.

“Is that what I think it is?” I
whispered.

“I told you to
say
thank
you.” Hendrix’s hands landed on my shoulders and
squeezed.

“Thank you,” I choked out. I tried not to
cry, but a few tears slipped by. It was just so beautiful. He was
right. This was something I actually wanted. This was something my
stomach wouldn’t protest and my body craved.

Hendrix stepped away to prepare it for me. He
heated it up on a small stove in the kitchen and served it to me in
a bowl with a spoon and soda crackers on the side. I marveled at
the civility of it all with every bite.

While I ate and nursed my sore tummy back to
healthy, Oliver talked. He told me about their solar panels and how
they had access to electricity and water. He explained that their
water wasn’t safe enough to drink, but they boiled it and treated
it after it came out of the tap. The plumbing would still work for
us, even though it was a temporary option. For now we were safe to
use it.

They had stores of food and supplies that
they’d taken from all over the city. They also had a greenhouse
where they were trying to grow a few crops. Again, the greenhouse
wasn’t a permanent solution, but while they figured one out it was
better than nothing.

Most of the population of Bogotá had been
wiped out by infection or moved out when they thought they could
find help elsewhere. The children ran the streets and there were a
few settlements of people, but the research station had set a
precedent early on and was safe from anyone that lived in the
city.

Occasionally visitors would stop by, but the
researchers had either been able to scare them off before or kill
them. I realized again how fortunate we were to get their
attention.

I also learned that they thought our sickness
had been a Trojan horse at first. They were impressed with our
out-of-the-box thinking. Then they were swiftly unimpressed when
they realized we were sick because we’d eaten dog…

They went over routines and how they would
change them to incorporate us into the mix. They figured out a
schedule of testing that we were happy with and they explained in
general terms everything they planned to do and how it would affect
us.

Their first priority was a vaccine because
they believed that would be easier to discover than a cure. A cure
was the dream, the white unicorn… the once-in-a-million chance and
they didn’t trust us enough to believe we had what it took to find
it.

That was okay with me. They would learn in
time how determined we were, how resilient. They would come to
understand the greatness of the Parkers and the sheer amounts of
stubbornness I wore like a badge. They would see our persistence,
experience our single-minded determination and believe us when we
said we would not give up, that we would not stop until our goals
were accomplished.

After hours of conversation and another bowl
of soup, I started to droop. My body had been through something
traumatic and I couldn’t fight the exhaustion anymore.

Hendrix wrapped his arm around me and excused
us from the conversation. Nelson and Haley were in charge of Page
for the night and they promised to get her to bed soon. Harrison,
King
and Adela had been given
their own rooms and Tyler and Miller had opted to share.

We said goodnight to everyone and Hendrix
helped guide me back to our room. I had no idea how he learned the
layout of this place so quickly, but I was impressed. I hoped it
would make more sense to me in the morning after a good night’s
sleep.

But I wasn’t counting on it.

Back in our room, I kicked off my shoes and
stripped down to my underwear. If Hendrix hadn’t been there to
maneuver me, I would have landed face first on the bed and not
moved for the next ten days.

I had never been so exhausted in my entire
life, but I had never felt the kind of freedom I needed to rest as
hard as I planned to.

Under the
cool
sheets, Hendrix wrapped me in his strong, warm arms
and held me against his hard body. Our legs intertwined and my body
nuzzled into the curve of his. We fit perfectly together and I
planned on spending as much time as possible in this position until
the day I died.

“I’m still having a hard time believing we
actually made it,” I whispered, afraid to break our peaceful
silence.

“I know what you mean.” His voice was soft
and thoughtful.

We fell quiet after that, for a long time. I
let my thoughts wander to all of the people we’d lost along the
way. I thought of Gage and how generous he had been with us, about
how unfair his death had been. I thought about Kane and the love
I’d given him, about our wild relationship and how it even came to
be. I thought about how much he changed while I knew him and how
selfless his death was. I thought about Vaughan and the friendship
I’d cherished with him, his wise advice and the pure example of
leadership he’d given his brothers and sister. I had never known
anyone like him and I knew without a doubt that I never would
again.

I missed each of those men. I
missed
what they brought to my life and how they
made me a better person, each in his unique way.

I grieved them all over again and mourned
their loss. I hated that we’d left them behind, that they hadn’t
made it this final stretch.

But I thanked each of them too. I thanked
them for their sacrifice and their investment in my life and this
family. I hated that we had reached our destination without them,
but I knew we wouldn’t have made it without them either.

They changed me. Profoundly.

And I would never forget what they did or who
they were.

Now we had a chance to rebuild… to heal and I
planned to utilize every second of this gift we’d been given.

This was the future I had hoped for… wished
for… prayed for.

It was ours now.

I would not waste it.

Chapter Four

Four months later…

I set my plate down and rubbed my full
stomach. I stretched arms that weren’t tired and blinked eyes that
didn’t have bags under them. I looked up at my loved ones and
counted them.

They were equally untired, unstarved and
unpanicked.

We had survived the worst of the Zombie
Apocalypse.

And somehow, in the midst of our most
heartbreaking moments, we found a way to live again.

We found a way to be safe.

Page sat on the couch, helping Lennon stand
on her lap. He wiggled unsteadily and gurgled his happiness at her.
He had become quite the chunky baby over the last few months, with
a full head of blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes. His smile
and baby noises had us laughing constantly.

Adela was at another table, surrounded by
Colombian children. Eventually we convinced Santi to let us help
them and she had taken on the task of teaching them to read and
write. Haley and I taught them English whenever we had a free
moment. It hadn’t been an easy task to find them again, but
Harrison had been unrelenting in his mission to better their
circumstances.

I had enjoyed watching him mature over the
last four months, even if he had been motivated by saving them from
eating dog meat again.

Hendrix had disappeared into the lab with
Oliver and Shay an hour ago. They were working on another
development. There had been several since we arrived, but none yet
that produced a cure or a vaccine.

The scientists had stopped believing those
goals were impossible though. The right breakthroughs, the right
discoveries were within our reach.

We would keep researching and experimenting
and working tirelessly until we had answers.

Until we had the tools that we needed to save
this world.

King and Miller played ping-pong across the
room, shouting their trash talk. Harrison goaded them on with his
snide comments, but I enjoyed every minute of their relaxed
antagonism. They didn’t always get along, but they loved each
other. They protected each other. They were three teenage boys
trapped in a research facility with no girls to chase and nothing
to really occupy their time. I could forgive their bickering
because I loved them too.

Tyler was curled up in a chair near Page. She
sat quietly and would occasionally talk to the baby or Page if she
felt like it, but she had withdrawn into herself more than I
thought was healthy. Vaughan’s absence still hit her hard… every
day. It wasn’t easier on the rest of us, but Tyler had loved him in
a way that we hadn’t. I wasn’t sure she would ever recover or ever
be able to move on.

My heart broke for her, but I was determined
to make her smile again… to make her truly laugh again.

I didn’t believe the light inside her was
dimmed forever. There would be reasons for her to live and breathe
in the future. Time would heal her shattered heart and piece her
back together again.

I hoped that was true for all of us.

“What’s up, Reags?” Haley plopped down next
to me, fresh from a shower. A real shower.

“Hey, Mama!” I grinned at her. “How was the
hunt?”

She ran her hand through her damp blonde hair
and grinned at me. “We bagged two on the north end of the city.
Nelson and Hendrix are dealing with them.”

“I’m impressed.” And I was. It was hard to
capture Zombies without killing them, especially since we’d never
been able to replenish our guns and ammo arsenal. We’d all learned
to fight with different weapons. When we ventured out of the
station, we weren’t safe, but at least we were prepared.

“You should be,” she laughed. “You’re so far
behind on body count, it’s a little sad.”

I glowered at her. “That’s not my fault. The
ball and chain never lets me leave.”

She leaned forward and said, “He has a good
reason to keep you locked up.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. She might be
right, but I wasn’t ready to admit that out loud yet.

“Don’t be a sore loser.” She winked at me and
slid a dusty plastic bag across the table.

Hendrix and Nelson walked into the room just
as I fingered the dirty plastic. Nelson hadn’t made it to the
shower yet. His shortened blonde hair was disheveled and muddy. His
clothes were streaked with black, sticky blood and his right arm
had been scratched to all hell. His shirt had been ripped to shreds
and his bloody skin told the story of a difficult battle.

I knew Haley bared her own battle wounds, but
they were covered up behind a long-sleeved shirt and long
pants.

We all accepted the risk every time we left
this place. We knew acutely what kind of danger we stepped into and
how quickly conflicts could go south.