Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (27 page)

“You can’t dwell on such things. There’s no good and bad now. There’s only survival.”

“Maybe survival isn’t enough. Where is my heart now? Have we all become animals, stepping over each other to get away from the monsters?” He closed his eyes again. “My son will never get to play football in the sunshine. If we survive long enough, he’ll eventually forget what it was like to feel the warmth of the sun on his face. Do I teach him to fight? To kill?” He sighed. “Sometimes I think it might have been better if the world had just ended quickly, instead of lingering around like a dying old woman.”

She took another hasty sip of her drink. She got up on her knees and leaned over the edge of the tub. Taking a washcloth, she dampened it and gently washed his face.

“That feels good,” Tomas commented drowsily.

She let the washcloth fall to the water and touched his face, her thumbs lightly tracing the curve of his bottom lip. She wanted to lean forward and kiss him, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Maybe she needed more booze. “Tomas, I want to show you something. I won’t be a moment.”

She hurried to her room. Lighting a candle, she quickly rummaged through her bag and found the black sleeveless dress she had bought for New Year’s. She wasn’t sure why she’d decided to take it with her when they fled Sweden. She stepped into it, unable to reach the zipper in the back, then moved to the dresser. She brushed her hair, then applied a little blush and eye shadow. In the candlelight, it was impossible to tell exactly how much to brush on. Her face was a pale orange mask, accented by deep shadows.

When she returned to the bathroom, Tomas was out of the tub, a red towel wrapped around his waist. His wet hair stood up in spikes, making him look younger.

Lifting her hair, she turned her back to him. “Here, zip me.”

He did, and she was acutely aware of his warm fingers against her skin for the briefest moment.

“What’s this?” he asked.

Melanie liked how his eyes traveled up and down the length of her body, appraising her.

“What do you think?” she asked, emboldened by the alcohol.

A slow smile touched Tomas’s lips. “I think you’re beautiful.”

“I bought this dress for you. I was going to wear it on New Year’s. I wanted to impress you.”

Tomas took another hearty swig from the whisky bottle. “I’m definitely impressed, but why?”

Butterflies danced in her stomach. “Because I’m in love with you.” There… it was done. She bit her bottom lip and waited for him to respond.

“Melanie. I don’t think—”

She stood on her tiptoes and stopped his words with a kiss.

“We’re drunk,” Tomas whispered, pulling away.

“So what?” She let her hands trail over his smooth chest, loving the feel of his damp skin. “The only time I know is now. The only day is today because we don't know if we’ll have tomorrow. I didn’t know if you were coming back tonight. You can’t begin to understand how that felt, Tomas, thinking I would never have the chance to tell you how I really feel.”

“This isn’t right. Your father trusted me to take care of you—”

“And you have, but my father is gone, and we’re still here.” She laughed bitterly. “Goddammit, Tomas. It’s not like I’m going to meet anyone. All we have is each other.” Tears threatened, and she blinked hard to clear them from her vision.

“I’m afraid,” Tomas said. “Don’t you understand?”

“No. I don’t understand.”

“I can’t allow myself to love anyone but Christopher. If something happens, it’ll hurt too much to bear.”

“I’ve been taking that chance since I came to live with you, Tomas. Why should I have to do it alone?”

Tomas took Melanie’s chin in his rough fingers, tilting it upward. He kissed her, slowly, his tongue skimming over the line of her lips before dipping into her mouth. She thought her knees would come unhinged and placed her hands on his shoulders to keep from collapsing.

He pressed his body to hers, and she felt his hardness against her. Effortlessly, he swept her up and carried her to the bedroom, his mouth never leaving hers. He laid her on the bed and climbed on top of her, his hands exploring the swells of her breasts through the silky fabric of her dress.

This is really happening
, she thought dizzily. She arched her body against his, her desire like an ache.

Tomas’s fingers moved between her thighs and traced the shape of her sex through the cotton of her panties. She gasped. He reached around and unzipped the dress, and she writhed out of it. He pulled down her panties, and she pushed them free and kicked them aside. She pulled his towel away, and finally, she could feel the entire length of his body on hers. He slipped inside her easily, and they moved together until both of them were spent.

Later, while Tomas slept, Melanie pulled on her underwear and one of Tomas’s big T-shirts. Holding the oil lamp in front of her like a woman from one of the silly Gothic romances her mother had loved to read, she made her way down the dark hallway and downstairs.

Christopher was still sound asleep under a thick handmade quilt on the sofa. In the recliner a few feet away, Colleen slept so heavily that Melanie stepped over and watched her a moment, waiting to see the slight rise and fall of her chest. Satisfied the woman was indeed still living, Melanie pulled the crocheted throw from the back of the sofa and covered her with it.

The fire had diminished to glowing embers, and she placed another thick log across the ashes and blew on them lightly, teasing a new flame to life. She picked up Christopher, and he barely stirred. She carried him upstairs and placed him beside his father in the bed, then she kissed them both gently and went to her own room.

January 15

Chapter 40

London, England

Stu’s sinuses ached, with the telltale tickle in the back of his throat, and he just generally felt like shit. He went to the pharmacy department of the market and helped himself to some liquid cold medication and a bottle of Vitamin C. After a moment’s consideration, he also took a bottle of the Vitamin D. Perhaps the lack of sunlight was finally taking a toll on him. He would make Tana and Davis take the D vitamins, as well. He opened the cold medication and turned up the bottle for a healthy swallow without bothering to measure a dose. It tasted like bitter cherries, and he washed that back with a drink of Diet Coke.

The children, the nurses, and Ken from Kent had settled into the store. The children seemed content, fed, and warm. They played with Davis cheerfully and were generally good kids. Stu didn’t feel good about leaving them, but the time to meet at Sanctuary was drawing near. The nurses, a pair of homely middle-aged women, initially stayed to themselves when they weren’t attending the children. Gradually, however, they’d opened up and fell into an easy routine of cooking, tidying, and joking with each other jovially.

Besides, despite taking up residence inside a supermarket, the edible food was growing scarce. The kids were perfectly happy to eat chips and deli meat forever. Stu would’ve given his left nut for a plate of his mother’s collard greens and a wedge of warm cornbread.

Ken had fallen into a routine of drinking whatever booze he could get his hands on and taking any opportunity to eyeball Tana, Ashley, and Portia. Stu wasn’t worried as the girls would be leaving with him, Tana, and Davis.

Stu had moved his tent to the back of the store, away from the children and the others. It was obvious what he and Tana were up to when they slipped into his tent together after lights out. He didn’t exactly feel comfortable with that in front of so many new neighbors. Plus, he’d caught Ken a couple of occasions, watching them together and wearing a rather pitiful expression. He didn’t think Ken was a violent type, but loneliness made men do strange things.

Things outside the block walls of their little kingdom were the same, except Stu had the strange feeling they were being watched. It was probably his own paranoia, but when he looked through the slits they had left for lookout in the foil-covered front windows, he saw the shadows moving.

Tana’s youngest son Aidan had also made a brief appearance. Stu thanked his lucky stars Tana and Davis had been sleeping at the time. The little boy looked as though he’d crawled from a grave. He no longer had his SpongeBob pajamas and was dressed only in underwear painted in filth and bloodstains. His chest had become sunken, and the delicate bones of his shoulders reminded Stu of the skeleton of a bird. The boy’s skin had taken on a bluish hue and was riddled with lesions. The flesh of his torn lips had shrunken back from his small, sharp teeth. He appeared to be rotting away.

“I want to come inside. I want my mummy,” the Rager-child creaked. The snow fell around him, tiny flakes that appeared to be little more than dust.

Stu removed the safety from his pistol and stepped to the door. Quietly, he unlocked it and opened it a few inches. The cold was wicked, as Tana liked to say. He slipped the nose of the gun out between the metal grids of the pull-down gate. The laser sight danced on the kid’s ghostly face and rested between his white, lifeless eyes.

He didn’t fire. It would’ve drawn more Ragers to the market. But worse, he couldn’t find it in himself to do it. What if he made it home to find his Maddy the same way? Would he be able to do it? Or would he want her to wander the cold streets alone, starving for flesh?

Stu closed the door and moved away from the windows. Later, when he checked the streets again, Aidan was gone and nasty handprints smeared a section of the front glass where his small hands had reached through the pull-down.

Later, Stu had spotted the headlights moving between the stalled automobiles littering the street. A truck stopped in front of a majestic church a couple of hundred meters away from the store. Stu snatched up the binoculars and pulled the truck into focus. The darkness had a habit of playing tricks on him, but he thought he saw a number of people going through the front door of the church, ushered roughly by a small platoon of armed survivors.

What were they up to? And how long would it be before they discovered the warm little haven inside the Tesco supermarket?

Chapter 41

Folkstone, Kent, UK

Tomas had become restless, which worried Melanie. Maybe it was the psychologist training trying to assert itself, but she wondered if something inside him had become damaged by the constant presence of danger and uncertainty. There they were in the safety and warmth of a lovely home, with two wonderful, caring people, and he was stalking about like a caged cat.

The only consolation was his endearing attentiveness to her, almost as if he felt guilty for sleeping with her and was constantly trying to make up for it. Their relationship had changed, and Melanie didn’t know how to lift the weird veil of awkwardness that had fallen on them. She had attempted to seduce him again, and Tomas had taken her to his bed, but stopped himself before they had sex, leaving Melanie confused and hurt and more than a little angry at him for being so silly and puritanical.

Upstairs, Colleen napped. She’d become markedly frailer in the past week.

“I’ll be back on me feet in a day or two. Don’t worry about me,” Colleen said.

“I’m sure you will,” Melanie whispered. She had been reading to Colleen from a P.D. James mystery, but Colleen kept dozing off, and then reawakening to ask Melanie to read the missed passage again.

Finally, Colleen had dozed more deeply, and Melanie closed the book. She had kissed the woman’s chilly forehead and whispered, “Rest well, dear,” before going downstairs to join the men.

Over scotch with Finn, Tomas was discussing leaving for Sanctuary. The Zombie Radio X broadcasts had resumed and aired regularly over the past three days. The
Shaun of the Dead
and
28 Days Later
references had grown tired, and the pair of faceless voices sounded weary. Even their music choices had become subdued. No more Ramones and Joy Division, they had moved to the gloomy ruminations of Bauhaus and Dead Can Dance.

“Listen to those kids, Tomas,” Finn said. He kneeled at the fireplace and probed with a poker, reawakening the dying embers. “They sound as though they’ve given up. You heard that broadcast the other day. They’ve lost some of their squad. They’re university kids, I’ll bet. What they’re talking about is suicide, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s worth a try,” Tomas said.

On the rug, Christopher crawled over Bo. The big, goofy shepherd lay happily on his belly, allowing the boy to climb on top of him. Every so often, the animal would plant a wet doggie-kiss on Christopher’s face and then go back to his job of being a fur-covered jungle-gym-slash-wrestling partner.

“Things may be better, safer on the other side,” Tomas reasoned.

Finn straightened with a soft groan and returned to his chair. “Could be worse, you know.”

Tomas didn’t answer, but Melanie said, “We have to know, Finn. Why can’t you and Colleen come with us? Maybe she could resume her treatments—”

“Darling, it’s not real,” Finn said. “It’s a dream created by a bunch of kids who are scared of dying.”

“We’re all afraid of that, Finn,” Melanie replied.

Tomas took Melanie’s hand and gently squeezed her fingers. She would have been happy to remain there, but she couldn’t ask that of Tomas. It would be selfish to suggest it, not when there was the possibility of a better life on the other side of the ocean.

“Stay with us,” Finn said. He watched Christopher frolicking on the rug with the dog, a wistful smile touching his lips. “For a while longer. Until this passes. And it will pass.”

Tomas regarded the older man a moment. “That’s a dream, too, don’t you think?”

“May I have milk?” Christopher asked, climbing onto the sofa, squeezing between Tomas and Melanie.

“I’ll get it.” Melanie took the boy’s warm little hand and led him to the kitchen.