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

He was saving our lives because we had saved
his. “Thank you, Diego.”

His grin returned and he stood up. He nodded
once more and walked away.

With the weirdest sense of loss, I watched
him go. Hendrix walked over and held out his hands. I still needed
help getting up and down and moving around. He had stuck by me
every moment.

I let him scoop me up and support my weight.
“What did Diego have to say?” he asked quietly.

“He warned me about Mexico City and said to
look for his cousin Tomás.”

Hendrix’s body stiffened next to mine.
“Sounds like it’s not exactly smooth sailing from here on out.”

I looked up at him and couldn’t help but
smile. “Did you think it would be?”

His lips twitched, “Not with you around.”

“Hey!”

He kissed my neck and helped me outside.
“I’ll take it though. If I get to have you, then bring it on. It’s
worth it.”

I loved this man.

The house had been a flurry of movement as my
friends packed and got ready to leave. Now the outside had that
same air of chaos. Nelson, Tyler and Vaughan packed the van that
Andy had given us. They were going to take one of Diego’s smaller
trucks since there were only three of them and we now had eleven
people if you counted the baby. If we were careful, we hoped it
would get us through Mexico.

Only time would tell. And Mexico City.

“You really don’t want to come with us?” Andy
asked as we stood in a circle next to the van.

“We have a different battle to fight,”
Vaughan explained. “If people are really out there looking for a
cure, we want to be part of it.”

And that was the truth. We had talked about
it a lot over the last week. Our exodus to Mexico had been about
several things. Checking out Page’s immunity had been part of a
laundry list of other reasons. Like fleeing the Colony. And having
nowhere else to go.

But now that we had options, we found that we
all wanted the same thing. If we could make this world a better
place, we would. We would do everything in our power to end the
Zombie problem.

And Page believed in our mission. She had
been the deciding vote. When she started to talk about how she
would like to know what the world was like without Zombies and how
she wanted us to live some place where Lennon could be safe, we
were sold.

That little girl had the most beautiful heart
and I was just lucky to know her.

Joy nodded her agreement. “Find the cure,”
she encouraged. “Find a vaccine.
And then
come help us. The
Lord knows we’ll need you.”

“If there is ever a way to send word on how
you’re faring, we’d love to hear from you,” Haley added. “Send us a
smoke signal or carrier pigeon or something. Let us know you’re
winning.”

Andy and Joy smiled at us affectionately.
“We’ll figure out something. Colombia is a long way away.”

“That’s what we’re counting on,” Hendrix
added.

We said our goodbyes after that. We hugged
each other for a long time. Haley had an especially tearful moment
with them. They had done some much for her.

I watched Page and Luke hug each other
awkwardly. Luke seemed to have a lot to say to Page and the worried
look on her face made me nervous, but I didn’t interfere. He handed
her something that she clutched in her hand before he gave her a
quick kiss on the cheek and walked away.

I braced myself for the Parkers to attack the
poor kid, but they let him live. Their mercy probably had something
to do with the fact that the kids would never see each other
again.

Miller didn’t seem as full of grace, but
Vaughan kept his hand firmly planted on the kid’s shoulder.

Ten minutes later, we were piled tightly in
the van. Vaughan and Hendrix had taken their spots in the front
seat and I was gently squished between Tyler and Page.

The bungalow was in our rearview mirror and
Colombia was before us.

“What did Luke give you?” I whispered to
Page.

She glanced at me uncertainly before opening
her palm to reveal a necklace. A gold locket dangled from a dainty
silver chain. Her cheeks blushed bright red as she held it
uncertainly.

“It’s lovely,” I assured her. “Is there
anything in it?”

She opened it slowly. I had expected to find
a picture of Luke inside, maybe from when he was younger, but there
was nothing in it. I leaned forward, noticing some scratches on the
metal.

That’s when I found the words.

On one side, Luke had carefully etched the
words, “Grow up.” On the other side, he’d scratched, “Find me.”

I didn’t know what to think about that, but
it didn’t look like Page was sold on the idea.

“Do you want me to put it on you?” I asked
because I couldn’t think of anything else.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

I felt intense relief and I didn’t understand
why. Page was nine. She was way too young to fully understand what
Luke wanted from her. And besides, Page was a Parker. She would
never
leave her family.

I smiled, realizing that family now included
me. This was my family. These were my people.

We had been through hell and back and the
fight wasn’t over yet. But we had made it this far. We had
survived.

And we would keep surviving.

Colombia didn’t feel so far away anymore. We
could reach our goal. We could find a safe place to live. We could
make a difference in this world.

We could stay together.

Episode Ten

Chapter One

1104 Days after initial infection

Mexico City, aka the epicenter of hell.

I had never seen anything like it. And that
was saying something, considering my recent exposure to all things
evil.

We’d come upon the city in the middle of last
night, thinking we could creep in unnoticed.

Wrong.

So wrong.

Apparently the middle of the night was when
the city came alive.

With gunfire, rabid Zombies and civil
war.

We should have been more prepared, especially
with our history. Truthfully, we had
actually
tried to come
into this city with guns blazing and our heads on straight. We had
game-planned and strategized. We had picked up as many weapons as
we could along the way. It just wasn’t enough.

There was no way to prepare for this amount
of carnage. Seriously. No way.

Bodies lined the streets in piles, reeking of
death and disease. Their ripped open flesh told the story of a free
buffet for Feeders. Their insides had been baked in the sun and
heat of the day. White bones had been licked clean and rotten flesh
and organs littered the ground around them.

I couldn’t understand why the remaining
living hadn’t burned the bodies. The dead would spread disease so
quickly and also attract Feeders. But it appeared that all the
living had time to do was push the bodies to the side of the road
before they jumped back into the constant war that buzzed through
the massive metropolis.

And massive it was.

Adela had said that something like nine
million people lived here before the infection. Nine million people
in one city.

Nine million people upended by an Apocalypse
that destroyed their lives and their loved ones.

The idea was unfathomable to me. I couldn’t
even begin to guess how many people had survived over the last
three years, but it had to be a drastically smaller number given
the amount of dead people we passed on the streets.

Adela had become our guide over the last
three weeks. She led us through the northern region of Mexico and
through the mountains that led us to Mexico City. Several nights
along the way she had known of a safe place to stay. She had saved
our lives with her connections and huge extended family.

Most of the people that gave us shelter had
either been some kind of cousin of hers or friends of her father or
Diego. They treated her with the respect of a queen when she told
them what had happened to the northern territories and that Diego
was now in control of everything. They never doubted her
information; they gave her their trust and their respect as soon as
she said Diego’s name.

It was remarkable and miraculous considering
how our first few weeks in Mexico had gone.

We’d managed to keep the van running and
fueled, despite not always having access to unlimited supplies. We
were down to our last stores of gas and had previously hoped Mexico
City would be a place where we could rest and restock.

Our gun and ammo supply were also
dwindling.

Not all Mexican Zombies were kept in
cages.

The last three weeks had been trying. We had
encountered several close calls and at least two times I had been
sure we would be dead by morning.

But we had survived. We had sustained
injuries, but we were alive.

And we hadn’t heard anything from the Colony.
Not a single peep.

Every once in a while Adela would inquire to
see if any of her friends or family had heard what had happened to
Matthias Allen or the infamous American colony that had invaded
their country and torn it to shreds. The people south of Diego’s
territory hated Matthias and his soulless army. They hated that he
thought he could walk over their countrymen and do as he
pleased.

They respected Adela by reputation. They
respected the rest of us by deed. We were heroes in their minds for
murdering Matthias.

We were heroes in my mind, too.

Too bad Mexico City hadn’t heard our
accolades yet. Maybe they would have been more accepting.

Maybe they would have held a parade in our
honor.

Just kidding. They would have tried to kill
us no matter what. These people didn’t care about the rest of the
country. The civil war that consumed them was the only thing that
mattered.

I realized that within seconds of reaching
the edges of the city.

“How could anyone control this entire thing?”
Haley whispered next to me. Baby Lennon curled up on her chest and
slept peacefully, unaware of the distant sound of constant gunfire
and groaning Zombies. “It’s
huge
!”

The van crested a hill, giving us a panoramic
view of the massive city able to house nine million people. I
sucked in a breath and tried to breathe through my panic.

The size of this city was incredible. Even in
the dead of night with only the milky light of the moon and the
fires that blazed in bright dots, I could see that this city was
never ending.

If it were truly at war with itself, how
could we make it through unscathed?

“Why couldn’t we go another way?” I asked
with bulging eyes.

“This is the only road,” Adela reminded us.
“They destroyed every other way. They funnel people to them.”

A shiver of alarm went through me. “Why?”

Adela sucked in a deep breath and explained,
“In the beginning, it was for their protection. They wanted to save
their city, so they set up perimeters forcing travelers to go
through them. They wanted to check for the infection and they
wanted all of the information anyone might be carrying. Then, they
went to war with the Territories, so it became a way to protect
them from attack. Eventually the Territories began fighting with
each other and so did the city. Now it is the only way, because no
one can repair the roads or the damage of the bombs.”

Even though most of the city was shadowed
with darkness, the sheer bigness of it intimidated me more than
anything else. Industrial buildings mixed with native design to
create a once beautiful cityscape.

As we drove deeper into the concrete jungle,
I could imagine the city as the crowning jewel of Mexico it had
once been. Now most of the windows were shattered and the sides of
houses and businesses destroyed with gunfire and explosions. The
roads had been ripped apart. They made traveling difficult, but I
supposed that was part of their purpose.

The smell of wood burning barely penetrated
through the stench of death and Zombies. There was a hazy fog over
everything and a dusting of ash that danced in the cool night
breeze.

This place
was
the Apocalypse.

Before the infection, if I were asked to
picture what I thought an Apocalypse would look like… this would
have been exactly how I imagined it.

Vaughan slammed on the brakes when a woman
ran screaming around a corner up ahead. Blood streaked her dirty
face and her tangled hair hung limply around her frail shoulders.
When she saw the van, she screamed louder, threw up her hands and
ducked into the nearest building.

I expected something to follow her, but
nothing else emerged from the dark alley she came from.

Vaughan pressed on the gas again and passed
the woman’s hideout without incident.

“Weird,” Hendrix breathed. He sat to my
right, with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. His gun lay on his
lap, ready and waiting for the first opportunity to use it.

“How are we going to find Tomás?” Tyler asked
from the front passenger’s seat. “We don’t even have a last
name.”

“When we ask for Tomás,” Adela explained,
“they will know who we are seeking. Our biggest problem will be
finding the right people to ask.”

“How do we know who to ask?” King
demanded.

Adela didn’t answer. I doubted she knew any
more than we did.

Next to me, Lennon grunted deeply. I smiled,
despite our circumstances. He made the cutest baby sounds, like a
little pig. I didn’t have much experience with newborns, but I
thought his voice was unnaturally low. When I said something to
Haley and Nelson about it, they had gotten defensive and argued,
“He was a man!”

But he wasn’t a man. He was just the most
adorable baby in the world. He was a month old now and somehow,
despite our lack of food and constantly dangerous living situation,
he had managed to grow. His chubby thighs had accumulated pudgy
wrinkles and his little face had filled out. Haley looked too thin,
even by our standards, but she was able to feed him and that was
all that mattered.