I woke gently, for the first time in weeks. No screams tearing their way up my throat, no panicked sweats. I woke with a stretch and a yawn, and I blinked against the sunlight streaming in through the window. A small bird sat on the hood of the truck, and I watched it in fascination for several moments before it flew away, as if somehow sensing that it was being watched.
I pushed the blanket off me and looked around the truck, making sure that the coast was clear before I opened the door and jumped down. Mikey was sitting with Joan by a small fire near the shore of the lake, and I made my way over to them. He turned at the sound of steps and smiled when he saw it was me.
His face looked younger and less stressed than it had yesterday, though he still looked light-years older than what I knew him to be. His dark hair was choppy and messy, sticking out at odd angles, and his beard was so long I could probably braid it—not that he would let me, of course. His skin was dirty, and small lines caught at the corners of his eyes and mouth. I smiled at him as I sat down, leaning over to press a small kiss to his cheek. It caught both of us by surprise. I wasn’t normally one to show such affection, but the loss of Emily had made me realize more about myself than I wanted to. I didn’t want to waste another minute of this life being closed off and cold with anyone.
“We’re making breakfast,” Joan said, her eyes shining with happiness. “I wanted to do a big breakfast—bacon, eggs, sausages, the works—but Mikey said we would have to make do with oatmeal and berries.” Her eyes slid to Mikey and she frowned. “I’m not keen on oatmeal, but he said he makes the best oatmeal ever. That he used to win awards for his oatmeal-making skills! Can you believe it?” Her frown transformed back into a smile.
“No, I can’t quite believe it.” I smirked at Mikey, who shrugged sheepishly. “Awards?”
“Yep, awards. I don’t want to go into it too much and toot my own horn, so let’s just leave it there,” he said hurriedly.
I grinned and shook my head. “Whatever,” I replied softly, and leaned back on my haunches.
It was cold out again but it was definitely starting to heat up, and we hadn’t had any rain for a couple of days, so I was taking it as a good sign that winter was over and spring was well underway. At least I hoped so. I didn’t know why, but I felt that maybe things would be better when spring arrived—that maybe with the new season, things might be different. Easier somehow. Things sure as hell couldn’t get harder.
“Nothing happening this morning?” I asked Mikey.
It felt strange that we hadn’t seen a deader for almost twenty-four hours. The area seemed to be clear of them, which was bizarre. But then we were in the middle of nowhere, I guess, so there wasn’t much to attract them. Staring out onto the lake, I thought again of Ben’s parents and their small log cabin. They had lived close to the shore, with almost nothing around them for miles, and there had been a small island that they used to take a small fishing boat over to so they could do bird-watching. At the time, Ben and I had teased them about it. It had seemed so random—bird-watching. But Ben had been right when he’d said that getting to them, or at least their cabin, could be the answer to our prayers until this whole mess died down. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been right about the last part, since the zombie infection had never died down, but spread.
I looked over at Mikey, who was stirring a small package of oatmeal into boiling water with considerable concentration. He did, after all, have a reputation to live up to now, and lumpy oatmeal would not be winning any awards.
I had decided yesterday that I wasn’t going to stay with the group, but would help get everything back to the mall and make sure everyone was settled there before leaving, and I hadn’t changed my mind. Now, though, I hoped that Mikey would come with me. I didn’t want to be on my own, but at the same time I didn’t want to stay in a group anymore. There were too many complications, too many losses for my heart to take, and too many things that could go wrong. Add that to the fact that I had severe trust issues and this group had done nothing but prove time and time again that I couldn’t trust them, and well, you get my drift.
Mikey looked up and smiled. “Everything okay?”
I knew his question implied more than what he was saying, but right then wasn’t the time to discuss my future running away plans. Because yeah, I was running away, but I was good with that decision. I’d rather run away and live like a hermit than watch any more people I cared about die.
“As well as things can be in an apocalypse,” I said instead.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he replied, and turned back to his oats.
“Where’d the oats come from?” I asked.
“I dug around in the truck, found a whole sack of oats in the other truck.” He shrugged and smiled at the same time.
I noticed the small pile of berries next to him, blackberries and raspberries, and my mouth began to water instantly. Suddenly Mikey’s award-winning oatmeal-and-berry breakfast didn’t seem so bad after all. Though I severely doubted it would win awards.
He poured me some oatmeal into an old tin can that was now a makeshift bowl, and dropped a handful of berries into it. We didn’t have spoons, so it was hands in, which was fine by me, apart from the scalded fingertips. The breakfast was amazing, and I could almost forget our current shitty situation. Or maybe not forget, but certainly I could live with it at the moment. Of course, that was always easy to say when there were no deaders chasing you.
“We need to get going soon. I’ll go wake Nova up.” I stood up, feeling satisfied in so many ways. My stomach felt full and warm, and I’d had the best night’s sleep in weeks. Certainly it was the first time in a while that I hadn’t awoken sweaty and wanting to scream in fear.
I hated to leave this little sanctuary. It was almost like we had put the world on pause since pulling up, and I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to press play again, but I knew we had to at some point. Besides, now that we knew the outcome of Hilary, we needed to get back to Jessica as quickly as we could if we wanted to save her.
“Oh, let me!” Joan stood up and I saw the mischievous twinkle in her eye.
She ran off before I could stop her, heading straight to Nova’s cab. She opened the door as quietly as she could and climbed inside, and I watched in strange fixation as she moved closer and closer to Nova’s sleeping form, until they were almost a centimeter apart and then licked her from her chin right to her forehead. Nova yelped and pulled away before pulling a gun on a cackling Joan and pushing her hard enough for her to fall off the seat. I stood up wondering if Nova would shoot her—I knew I sure as hell would if she licked my face—but Joan couldn’t have been too concerned, since I could still hear her laughing loudly.
She climbed out of the truck and skipped toward us, flopping down next to me with a huge, exaggerated sigh. Mikey busied himself on stirring Nova’s porridge as she stomped her way over to us, looking furious. And I tried not to grin too hard. It was difficult. Really really difficult.
“What the fuck, Joan? You never wake someone up with a lick to the face!” Nova yelled down at her with a scowl.
“Or with telling someone there are spiders,” I piped in obnoxiously.
Nova turned her scowl on me. “Yes, or that.”
“Even if they are a ninja,” I replied without looking at her.
Mikey burst out laughing and then so did I. When I looked up, Nova wasn’t even grinning so I swallowed the rest of my laugh down.
“Mikey made his award-winning oatmeal-and-berries breakfast,” I said helpfully.
Mikey handed over the final serving of breakfast and Nova took it with a huff before sitting herself down and ignoring us all. She wasn’t really a morning person, but once she’d eaten, I knew she’d be her cheerful self again. It seemed that this trip had us switching personalities, and if I were truthful, I didn’t want to give this one back. It was much better being more easygoing instead of weighed down by terror and hate. Almost like I could breathe properly for the first time in years.
Nova lit a cigarette right after finishing her oatmeal, and she stared silently into the dying flames of the fire. By the time her cigarette was finished, she was her usual happy-go-lucky self again.
“I can’t believe how quiet it is here,” she commented, and I had to agree. It was, but I didn’t want to say it out loud and jinx it so I merely nodded in agreement. “Last night I didn’t see one zombie. Not one. That’s almost never happened.”
“I wonder why,” Mikey said with a finger stuck in his mouth as he chewed on his nails. “Not that I’m complaining. It just feels a little weird, and weird tends to make me uncomfortable.”
“Like you said, there’s nothing around for miles. Probably just that.” I finally joined in the conversation. “Anyway, let’s just enjoy the peace and quiet instead of questioning it. Maybe it was just our turn for a break. After all, we do seem to have extremely shitty luck.”
No one challenged me on it, so I guessed they agreed.
“How far are we from the mall now?” I had no sense of direction, or distance. Some things never change, I guess.
“Another day. Maybe we could get there before nightfall if we put our foot down and don’t run into any trouble,” Mikey said, his hands hovering precariously close to the flames of the small fire. “But you never know what you’ll find out there on the roads. Shit changes all the time.”
“Speaking of trouble, we’re going to have some at the road of the damned,” Nova said. “Not that I ever worry about those fuckwits, but in the sense of bringing everything to the table, it’s something we should discuss. What new treat will they have for us today?”
I rolled my eyes. I had already been thinking the same thing. The distressing thing was that there was more than enough in this world to be worrying about—deaders hunting us day and night, lack of food and water, the elements getting to us—and then you have to go and add psychos and nutcases into the mix for good measure. I would be glad when I was tucked away in my little corner of the world, not having to worry about any of this shit.
“We don’t need to worry about them anymore.” Mikey lowered his hands until they were millimeters away from the flames and I stared transfixed, willing him to move his hands before he hurt himself but not wanting to voice my concerns out loud. “The deaders got them.”
He surprised me by actually sounding sad. But that couldn’t be right; those people were murderers—the worst kind of murderers because they had no beliefs or convictions behind their murders, just the very simple and illogical reasoning that they wanted what you had, and would try and get it by any means possible.
“What do you mean? How do you know that?” Nova asked, her voice sounding as frustrated as I felt.
I leaned over and slapped Mikey’s hands away from the fire, not being able to watch him almost burn himself any longer, and he looked up at me sheepishly while rubbing his hands together.
“The horde that took out base, it took out them too,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Shit,” Nova said on a breath. “How fuckin’ big is that horde?”
I knew she wasn’t really asking for an answer, but I couldn’t stop myself from replying anyway.
“Too big,” I said darkly.
Joan leaned into my side then, obviously sensing my sadness. She was a crazy old bat, but I was beginning to really care for her. In many ways she was like an animal: she could sense fear and anger, sadness and more, and she reacted to those emotions. I think it probably stemmed from her living feral for so long, but I had no real way of knowing. For all I knew, she could have been this crazy long before the apocalypse. Either way, there was no changing her. She was how she was; all we could do was accept her and comfort her the best we could when the real world sucked too much. I placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She still smelled awful, but at least out in the open it wasn’t so bad. She looked up and smiled at me, revealing her broken and browning teeth, and I grimaced, my oats threatening to make a reappearance.
“Do you think we should all try to wash today—you know, while we have a chance? After all, the area seems clear,” I said while smiling down at Joan. “All of us,” I emphasized, so she didn’t get offended.
“That’s not a bad idea, actually. I love cold water.” Nova stood up, took a quick look around us to be certain no deaders were sneaking up, and then she began to undress as she stalked toward the edge of the lake.
I hadn’t actually meant a full-on strip wash, and when Nova walked straight into the water buck naked, barely flinching as the freezing water lapped her thighs, I was stunned. She submerged herself, head and all, and then popped her head out of the water and smiled.
“God damn that’s good,” she yelled over to me. “Get your asses in here.”
Mikey, being a typical man, followed her every curve and every glisten of water on her bare skin, regardless of the fact I was seated right next to him. Not that I really cared too much. I wasn’t the jealous type—and besides, she had an awesome body, considering we were all so malnourished. I punched him in the shoulder as Joan left my side, ran to the edge of the lake, and began to undress.
“You going to watch Joan do a strip show for you now?” I teased with a small laugh. Because no, I wasn’t a jealous woman, but there was appreciating and then there was just plain perverseness.