The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege (21 page)

“God, that’s got to be hard,” Kimberly
said.

“It’s life,” Sadie said. “Nothing you can do
about it except to live with it and adapt accordingly. Which we’ve
done. It’s our normal now, and there’s nothing hard about it.”

Kimberly winced, realizing just how stupid
that comment had been. “Sorry. I just…sorry, that was stupid. I
didn’t mean it like that at all. I just have occasional flare-ups
of foot-in-mouth disease, and I really stuck it in there this time,
huh?”

Sadie’s lips quirked, and she turned her
attention back to the map. “Need some salt and pepper for that
foot?”

Kimberly bit back a snort, and both of them
laughed.

“You aren’t planning to go by yourself, are
you?” Sadie asked.

Kimberly almost said, “No, of course not,”
but then she hesitated. The thought of going by herself had crossed
her mind; she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to find a
capable volunteer to go with her on such a dangerous trip. And it
would
be a dangerous trip; there was no doubt about it. If
she didn’t die before it was all over, she’d be surprised.

“I’d like to find someone to go with me,”
she finally said. “But I’ll go by myself if I have to. If nobody is
willing to take the trip with me.”

“I’d go,” Sadie said. “If nobody else
volunteered. But I’d have to bring Jude with me, and I don’t know
if it’s something he would want to do.”

“Yeah, and I’m not sure I’d want to drag you
two along with me,” Kimberly said. “It’s nothing against you guys,
but I don’t know you very well, and I’m not sure I’m willing to
haul you along on a trip like that.”
You’re just kids,
she
wanted to say but didn’t.

“It’s okay,” Sadie assured her. “I
understand.” She offered Kimberly her pen back, and Kimberly tucked
it behind her right ear. They were silent again for another minute,
and then Sadie asked, “So…is there someone in particular you want
to go with you?” There was a note of mischievousness in her voice
that made Kimberly raise her eyebrows.

“What makes you think there’s someone in
particular?” Kimberly asked.

“Because I’m not stupid, and I saw how you
were looking at that blonde guy and how he was looking at you when
your back was turned earlier, when we were in the kitchen,” Sadie
said. “What’s his name again? Ewan?”

“Ethan,” Kimberly corrected. Her mind slid
back to the porch, to the way she’d felt when Ethan had pressed her
gently against the railing and their mouths had met in that kiss.
She had wanted more, so much more, and she’d nearly told him so
outright. Hell, a few seconds longer and she’d have been climbing
him like a tree, right there on the porch for God and everybody to
see.

“No,” Kimberly finally said. “No, there
isn’t much of anything going on with me and Ethan.”

“But you want there to be, don’t you?” Sadie
said, a slight twinkle in her eye. “You want
him
to be the
one to go with you, right?”

“Why are we talking about this again?”
Kimberly asked. She started to gather her map, folding it carefully
along the creases.

“I just want to make sure you’re going to be
okay out there and that you’ll at least have some good backup,”
Sadie said. “Since you said that you’ll be carrying something
important, which just makes me think it has something to do with
the cure for this virus.”

Kimberly raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“What? Dr. Rivers told me he used to work
for the CDC, and you’re trying to get out with important stuff, and
the rumor is that the CDC had something to do with the zombie
virus. So you’ll probably be carrying a possible cure out of here.
It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“You’re very perceptive,” Kimberly
commented.

“Yeah, that’s what my dad used to tell me
when I was younger.”

Kimberly finished folding the map. “Where
are your parents, anyway?”

Sadie looked away from her then, the
mischievous look fading from her expression, and Kimberly knew the
answer. It was the same sad-as-fuck story that they’d all had to
deal with.

“Didn’t make it,” Sadie said. “Dad stayed
behind to give me, Jude, and Mom a chance to get out of the house,
and Mom got sick and died about a month later.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Kimberly said with
genuine sympathy.

Sadie waved a hand at her negligently.
“Don’t worry about it. Shit happens, and Dad prepared me and Jude
for stuff like that.”

Kimberly gave her a curious look.

“Dad was Army Special Forces. He taught us
everything we know about survival, living off the land, all that
good stuff. And he taught us how to fight. If it wasn’t for him, we
wouldn’t have survived this long.”

“Your dad sounds like a tough guy,” Kimberly
commented.

“Oh, he was,” Sadie said. “Very tough. Very
smart. He always thought that one day we’d need his knowledge. I
don’t think he expected it to be because of
zombies
.”

“Nobody ever expects zombies, Sadie,”
Kimberly said, fighting off a small grin that quirked at the corner
of her mouth. “Just like nobody ever expects the Spanish
Inquisition.” She tucked the folded map into her backpack that was
on one of the dining chairs nearby and zipped the bag closed,
shouldering it. “Come on, let’s see if we can track down Brandt and
find out if there’s something we need to be doing. I’ve done all
the planning I can for now; everything else will have to wait until
I’m out on the road.”

Jude was supposed to be sleeping, but with the noise
outside—the constant beat of hands and bodies against the wall, the
semi-erratic pop of rifle fire somewhere nearby—it was all but
impossible. He had spent a couple hours tossing and turning before
giving up and crawling out of the twin bed the nice foreign
woman—Cade, he remembered—had shown him to earlier. He made the
bed, pulling the sheets tight, tucking them in military-style, with
crisp folds and tucks, just like his father had taught him. Then he
went to the dresser on the other side of the room, skirting the
empty twin bed that Sadie had used.

It didn’t surprise him that Sadie wasn’t in
it. She’d never been one to sleep through the night, usually no
more than a few hours at a time. She had become paranoid, jumping
at the slightest sounds, hovering by the closed tent flap, weapon
in hand.

He couldn’t blame her for the paranoia. He’d
gotten to be a little paranoid too. Considering there were zombies
stomping around in the world now, he supposed it was a
healthy
paranoia, which was better than the kind that turned
a person into a gibbering mess. At least this kind of paranoia only
gave him an itchy trigger finger, which had saved his and his
sister’s lives on more than one occasion.

His own weapons were laid out on the dresser
top in a neat, militaristic row. His Kevlar was draped over the
back of a chair. He picked up the Kevlar and started to look it
over, making sure its integrity hadn’t been compromised during the
last fight he and Sadie had been involved in. Satisfied that all
was as it should be, he shrugged the vest on, fastening catches and
snaps and buckles and bits of Velcro until its snug familiarity
gave him assurance. Then he started on his weapons.

Holsters and sheaths found their ways onto
belts and straps and around thighs, guns and knives and ammunition
slid into pockets and against leather until he was standing by the
dresser with twenty pounds added to his slight frame, shotgun in
hand, ready to take on the world.

Now he just had to figure out where to take
it on at.

Jude made one more pass around the room,
checking for anything he’d forgotten—he didn’t know when he’d be
able to return—and then grabbed his low profile backpack, sliding
it onto his shoulders and settling it into place. It was identical
to his sister’s, which sat on the floor beside her bed, slouching
there like an insolent toddler. He sat down on the edge of the
chair long enough to double-knot his boot’s laces and then headed
for the bedroom door, intent on exploring his new environment and
looking for weak points in security.

The hallway was quiet and still, no sign of
anyone anywhere. The doors lining the hallway were shut, so he
closed his own. Last line of defense against zombies and all that.
He could see how someone would come to that conclusion, though he
knew exactly how effective a simple closed door was against
zombies: not the slightest. His father would attest to that, if he
were still alive.

Jude draped the strap of his shotgun over
his shoulder, letting it bump against his back as he started for
the stairs. He paused at the top for a moment, listening carefully
for signs of danger; all he heard were two voices, both female. One
belonged to his sister. He headed downstairs and out the front
door, as silent as a ghost. No one noticed his exit.

It was dark outside, the only illumination
coming from the almost-full moon. He tilted his head back, closed
his eyes, and breathed in deeply. The air smelled fresh and crisp,
like cut pine and late summer, and he drew as much of it as he
could into his lungs, holding it in, as if to cleanse them, before
he blew the breath out and opened his eyes again. The stars loomed
overhead. He studied them, trying to figure out the time—his watch
had been broken during the fight he and Sadie had engaged in
earlier, when a zombie had gotten too close and he’d resorted to
punching it in the face. He gave up when his tired mind couldn’t
remember the astronomy lessons his father had given him when he was
younger.

A rifle pop sounded nearby, reminding him of
why he had come outside to begin with. He abandoned his gaze at the
nighttime sky and shifted it toward the front gates.

He wondered fleetingly what had become of
Remy and Dominic; he hadn’t seen them since entering Woodside. He
hoped neither of them had gotten in trouble for bringing them
here.

On one of the platforms was a man, tall and
lean, a rifle cradled in his hands as he stared down over the gates
at the commotion below. Jude nodded decisively and started in that
direction, climbing the aluminum ladder bolted to the platform, the
same one he’d practically slid down earlier. He mounted the
platform cautiously.

The man half-turned to look at him and gave
him a small smile. “Hi,” he said. He turned away before Jude could
return the greeting with a wave, focusing his eyes below. “You
shouldn’t be out here. It’s dangerous.”

Jude shrugged, even though the man wasn’t
able to see the gesture, and stepped forward to lean against the
wall.

The man looked at him. “You’re not a very
talkative one, are you?” he asked.

Jude held up a finger, indicating for the
man to give him a moment, and then shrugged his backpack off one
shoulder and swung it around. He dug inside until he came up with a
pad of paper and a pen. He hadn’t had to use paper in a long time,
but Sadie had always made sure he had some handy in case he had to
communicate with someone who didn’t know sign language. He uncapped
his pen with his teeth and wrote, as neatly as he could manage,
“
I’m mute. I can’t talk.
” Then he held it up so the man
could see it.

The man’s eyes skimmed the note. “Wow. I’ve
never met anyone who was mute before. Have you always been like
that, or…?”

Jude shook his head. “
Since I was
eight,
” he wrote, and he paused before adding, “
I’m Jude, by
the way.
”

The man smiled. “Nice to meet you. I’m
Keith.” He offered Jude his hand, and Jude shook it. “I’m generally
in charge of the guys we use to guard the community. Obviously,
we’re not doing too good of a job of it.” He motioned toward the
zombies, then paused, raised his rifle, and aimed. One of the
zombies had started to climb the pile of dead ones mounded at the
foot of the gates. With a single shot, Keith put a neat hole in the
climber’s forehead and knocked him back.

“
Nice shot,
” Jude scrawled underneath
the last note. Keith read it and smiled.

“Thanks. I used to go out deer hunting a lot
before all of this went down.” He waved his hand, indicating the
world at large. “Now, I just shoot the infected.”

Jude didn’t miss the way Keith’s eyes slid
up and down him, like he was assessing him. Jude flushed and
distracted himself by writing down another question for the other
man. “
Where are you from?
”

Keith glanced at the note and shrugged.
“Muscle Shoals, Alabama,” he answered. “You?”

Jude smiled slightly, happy to be having a
conversation with someone other than his sister and without his
sister here to interpret for him. He hadn’t done this in so long
that he’d almost forgotten what it was like. He was a fast writer,
so the pen and pad exchange wouldn’t slow their conversation. He
scribbled, “
My sister and I are from Cartersville, Georgia. It’s
about an hour outside of Atlanta.
”

Keith winced. “Oh hell, so you guys got hit
pretty quick by Michaluk.”

“
Not even any warning,
” Jude
confirmed. “
It wasn’t there one day, and then it was.
”

“Family?”

He shrugged and added, “
Except for Sadie,
they’re all dead.
”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Keith said. He sounded
like he actually meant it. Jude shrugged again and chewed on the
end of his pen, trying to decide what to say next. While he was
excited to be communicating with someone besides Sadie, he suddenly
had no idea what to say. He twirled his pen between his fingers,
watching the zombies below that reached for him.

Keith motioned to Jude’s shotgun. “You any
good with that thing?”

“
About as good as I can be,
” Jude
answered, truthfully. “
My dad taught me and my sister how to
shoot and how to survive.
”