My Zombie Summer (Book 1): The Undead Road (21 page)

“Why don’t you want to stay with us?”

“I wouldn’t want to bite any of you.”

“Oh,” Jewel said, pouting. “Okay.”

“I’ll throw the keys to you after I lock myself in.” Kaylynn gave me a last look before leaving the cell and closing it. She entered the cell on the other side of the hall, slid the door shut, and locked it. The keys landed next to my feet when she threw them back. “See ya.”

“Yeah.” I reached down for the keys. “See ya.”

Seconds later, Kaylynn sat down on a cot. I closed our cell door and locked Jewel, Chloe, and myself inside. Kaylynn didn’t take Chloe with her, leaving the retriever in our care instead. That wasn’t like her. Up until that afternoon, she’d never worried about biting us before. While this was perfectly reasonable, I knew Kaylynn was afraid of something. I couldn’t tell what.

Why are girls so impossible to figure out?

Jewel claimed the cot and I tried to make myself comfortable on the floor before turning my light off.

Sleep proved to be impossible that night. Jewel squirmed for an hour before she drifted off. I slipped an hour or two in. Thanks to the weirdest day I’ve ever had since the Vectors had taken over the world, I couldn’t avoid the oncoming nightmares. Malcolm was in my dream. He chased us with a meat grinder. He wanted sausages to go with his
scrambled eggs
. Kaylynn dodged arrows from Cody at the big box store. Jewel wandered the streets of Marysville with Chloe at her heels.

She had a new hunting rifle. She aimed at me.

I looked down. My hands were decayed.

Having your little sister plant a bullet in your head is the worst way to wake up from a dream. I pushed the light on my watch and nearly cursed. 10:50 pm, but it felt more like 3:50 am. I hate it when that happens.

“Jay?” Kaylynn asked. “You awake?”

I sat up faster than a springboard. “Yeah.”

“I can’t sleep,” she said. “Can we talk?”

Ninety percent of me said “no” and the remaining ten percent of me still clang to the hope that we could make things work between us, so I had to say, “Uh, yeah. Sure. But I don’t want to wake Jewel up.”

“Come to my cell,” she said. “It’s quiet here.”

That remaining ninety percent of me took a hike.

I stood up and opened the cell door. Surprisingly, Chloe didn’t stir. She snuggled next to my sister instead. My adjusted-to-the-dark eyes had no problem guiding me to Kaylynn’s cell. I used the keys to open her door and then I sat down next to Kaylynn on her cot. She was sitting up, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her expression hadn’t changed since we last spoke, which made me curious. I had to know what she had to say.

She scooted next to me. Her hand clasped mine. That was unexpectedly grabby of her. A warm surge ran down my back from her soft fingers, like electricity.

“At the ballpark, you said you were agnostic,” she said. “What’s that?”

“
That’s
what you want to talk about?”

“Is it wrong to ask more about you?”

Not if she put it that way. I wasn’t exactly fond of explaining the subject, and I wasn’t sure why she was asking me now. “We just believe that anything’s possible. There’s no proof that gods or higher beings exist, and there’s no proof that they don’t exist either.” At that point, I didn’t know what Kaylynn believed in, or if my answer had turned her off. “Is that a problem?”

She gestured at herself. “Do I look qualified to judge anyone?” Any answer would mean I was judging her, so I appreciated the understanding. “If you think about it, faith is like this cure we’re looking for. Why do we believe in a cure if we don’t know there is one?”

“Is this some kind of
finding Jesus
moment?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Jay.” Her free hand fiddled with her dragon pendant. “I’m not trying to convert you or anything. You and your family are nicer and more considerate than most of the religious people I know—knew.” She let her pendant go. The metal thumped against her chest. At the movement, I realized that I knew next to nothing about this girl. What did she believe in? What did she really want? And I was only thinking of myself. “I don’t want to be infected, but if I am, I’m not one of them yet. And with these powers, it could only mean I’m this way for a reason.”

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s hard for me to swallow.”

“I should be sorry for almost swallowing you.”

“Look. I need you to promise me something.”

I felt her moving closer to me. “What is it?”

“You . . . don’t use your powers anymore.”

“Huh? We wouldn’t be here without them.”

“I know, but what if you attack us again?”

Her hand gripped mine again, tighter than before. “You’re saying I’ll turn into one of them no matter what I do. You think going into zombie mode will turn me into one of them for good?”

“Or permanently. I don’t want to lose you.”

Her fingers interlocked with mine. “I won’t.”

I couldn’t see her in the dark, but I didn’t have to. Her face appeared in my mind. So did her smile.

“Sometimes when I dream, I see them,” she said. “I can see what they see, and what they’re doing.” She raised her head. “They’re hunting us right now.”

“What do you mean? Do they know we’re here?”

“Just the ones in town. They don’t know where.”

I sighed. “We picked a good place to stay low.”

“Yeah.” She sighed too. “I did.”

I was about to laugh when Kaylynn threw her arms around me. I froze in place, not sure if she was hugging or attacking me. She never hugged me before now. Why would she all of a sudden? Then again, I wasn’t about to complain. She held me close, and her body was warm.

I wrapped my arms around her.

I liked that. I
really
liked that.

“If I had told you about my bite, none of this would’ve happened.” Kaylynn’s forehead crashed onto my shoulder. Her body was shaking. “I’m sorry, Jay.”

“Cut it out,” I said. “None of this is your fault.”

“It totally is! If I had stayed in your car, we never would’ve met Cody, never would’ve stayed in David City. You’d have filled your car and kept driving.” She lost it after that. I held onto her, not knowing what else to do. “You’d be better off if you’d never found me.”

“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me.”

“Wow.” Kaylynn raised her head. “Cheesy.”

“You have something against cheese?”

She lowered her head and laughed. “Nope.”

We leaned against the wall. Her head came to a rest on my shoulder. We talked until she dozed off. Her gentle breath was adorable. I just watched her and felt like a creep when I stared at her neckline and the dragon pendant now settled over her chest. If Kaylynn didn’t know how I felt at that moment, then nothing would get the message across. After that night, I had comfort in knowing that she cared for me in return. If only she would tell me, then I would know for sure.

After we found that cure, maybe she would.

I woke up with my head in Kaylynn’s lap, which was the most comfortable feeling ever. The morning light bled through the windows and down the hallway. I licked my lips and smacked my mouth. My insides were drier than cotton. Before we did anything, we had to find water.

I looked for my sister. She wasn’t in her cell.

“Jewel?” I cried out. She didn’t answer me.

“Huh?” Kaylynn stirred awake. “What’s wrong?”

I jumped to my feet. “Jewel’s gone.”

Kaylynn rushed to the cell door. “So’s Chloe!”

We opened the door and I followed Kaylynn down the concrete hall, giving little thought to the potential dangers ahead. What was Jewel thinking? She knew better than to take off on her own. If she stepped so much as one foot outside, I’d kill her. Nah. I wouldn’t do that. Mom and Dad would kill
me
if I did.

“Crap,” I said. “I forgot to lock her cell.”

“Jewel?” Kaylynn called softly. “Chloe?”

There was a grating sound ahead. A door opened, and then the scampering of paws running on the cheap linoleum floor. Chloe sniffed at my heels, and then her hot tongue licked my hand. Kaylynn tousled the dog behind her ears with both hands. I hoped this meant Jewel was safe. She came around, holding a new rifle.

“Look what I found!” she said.

Jewel ran back the way she had come. Not far from an emergency exit was a storage room with racks and cages; the station’s armory. There wasn’t much left, but from the half-empty boxes of ammo and abandoned firearms, we had enough to keep us going for a while. We had a fighting chance of reaching Kansas City alive.

“Way to go, Jewel!” I said. “But you nearly gave me a heart attack. Don’t take off like that again.”

“You guys were too cute,” she said, winking at us. “I couldn’t wake you up.”

Cute? Kaylynn and I were
cute
? If Kaylynn’s blush was any indication, my cheeks were just as red.

“How did you find this place?” I asked. “I thought we checked the whole place last night.”

“Think fast!” Jewel tossed an unopened bottle of fresh water to Kaylynn.

I saw half a case of them in the back corner. “Don’t I get one?” I asked.

Kaylynn threw hers to me. “Toss me another?”

The last time I downed 16-ounces was during my first attempt at Track and Field. Didn’t turn out well. Long story. Not going there. Kaylynn and I raced to see who finished ours first. She opened her second bottle before I emptied mine. Everything was a competition.

While I downed my second bottle, I put the last four in my backpack and took stock of the weapons. We couldn’t take them all. A trip to Kansas City would be long and cumbersome with that hardware weighing us down. I settled for a 9mm Glock and three eighteen-round magazines for a total of fifty-four bullets. I found only twenty-eight rounds. Jewel had another 30-06 with a little more than half a box of shells. We had 12 Gauge shells too, but not enough to max the chamber.

Aside from the guns, the room had a few other surprises: flash bangs, a leg holster, and body armor. Jewel grabbed a sling for her rifle to free up her hands. I strapped the holster to my leg. Knowing that my hands were free while having access to a pistol was great. Too bad there wasn’t a mirror. I bet we looked badass.

I packed the flash bangs and the shotgun shells. Kaylynn waited for us at the door, her foot pressed against the frame. She didn’t bother to pick up anything. Then again, she didn’t need to. The Vectors had no interest in her. She didn’t even need to carry a baseball bat. Kaylynn had all those special powers and Jewel had the dumbest luck in the universe, and the only thing I had to contribute was my crack-shooting, pistol-whipping skills. What good is that without ammo?

I had to do something for all the times Kaylynn and Jewel had saved my sorry rear end. I had to be more than the guy with the backpack. Speaking of backpacks, mine was starting to get heavy. Seriously heavy. I led Jewel outside of the munitions room.

“Great find, Jewel,” Kaylynn said.

“Thanks. Are the Vectors gone?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s find some food.”

After a short bathroom break, we scavenged around the rest of the station. Aside from a few strewn papers and cluttered cubicles, there wasn’t much left.

But then I had an idea. What if the employees had secret stashes? I walked into an office and checked the drawers. Sure enough, someone had a few sodas and a box of chewy granola bars hidden away. We downed them fast. I knew sugar water wouldn’t last long, but the caffeine kick did zap away the last of my grogginess. If you ever need a good laugh, slip Jewel a Mountain Dew.

Kaylynn poured some water into a cereal bowl. Chloe lowered her head and lapped it up.

“I want my pack,” Jewel said. “It had the PSP.”

“And your iPod?” I asked, although a part of me panicked. If she had lost her music, she’d be crushed.

She reached into her pocket and pulled it out, flashing a huge smile. “I always have it on me!”

“What have you got on it?” Kaylynn held her hand out, and Jewel let her see her treasure. Kaylynn scrolled through the menu for half a minute, her smile widening each second. “Black-eyed Peas. Duran Duran. The Beatles?” She handed it back. “You’ve got great taste.”