I snorted out a laugh, thinking of the first time we met and our fight over my favorite bag of candy. And then my face fell and I stared after him in horror.
“Hell no, they’re mine!” I yelled and ran inside.
The place had been ransacked to within an inch of its life. Not even crumbs remained, which didn’t entirely surprise me, but it did depress the shit out of me more than it should have. We checked under racks and behind the counter, even cautiously checking the storeroom, but found nothing but bones and empty boxes.
“Well, this was a total waste,” Nova bit out angrily. I saw the light turn on in her eyes and she turned and headed for the two deaders by the doorway.
Rooting through their pockets, she found a lighter and a half-empty pack of cigarettes. She smiled and lit one up before standing up with a long, drawn-out sigh.
“I found a map.” Mikey said, handing it to me. “Find it, circle it, and I’ll work out the rest. Let’s check for gas and get going. I want to reach the mall by nightfall, if possible,” Mikey said.
“Okay.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Do you really think we can make it before then?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know till we try.”
After checking the pumps and finding them bone dry, we climbed back inside and continued on our way. It was still only mid-afternoon, but the sky was darkening for a storm. I looked up at the dark gray clouds that were slowly but surely filling the sky, and I let out a heavy sigh. Winter had never been my favorite time of year, but now it was definitely my most hated time of the year. I was only grateful that the snow had melted in the last week or two and it was rain that was coming down. We were falling into spring, which was at least livable.
The rain worried me. It made it almost impossible to hear any deaders or other humans creeping up on you. I sighed again, feeling nostalgic for happier times—times when I didn’t have to be on alert twenty-four seven, and times when I could snuggle up in front of my fireplace back home, with a hot chocolate and marshmallows and a good book. Those days were long gone, and it was hard to believe that they had ever really existed, that I didn’t just make them up. I certainly couldn’t see them happening again—not in my lifetime anyway.
The rain finally exploded from the clouds and came hammering down on the truck, and Mikey slowed the vehicle and whacked on the wipers. Visibility was poor with how heavy it was, but I trusted him to keep us safe.
We came upon a small wreckage of three or four cars, and Mikey slowed down even more as we passed, checking for any survivors. I rolled my window down, my face getting lashed from the rain as I checked out the vehicle. Hands banged on the inside of the windows and jaws snapped against the glass, letting us know that there wasn’t anything alive inside, and I quickly put up my window.
After that we didn’t see anything for miles—just miles and miles of open road. There were abandoned cars and old wreckages, but nothing that made any of us want or need to check for survivors. As time wore on, it was becoming more and more apparent that the population was dwindling—or at the very least safely tucked away somewhere.
The rain beat down harder, and the wipers were on as fast as they could go. Mikey was leaned right over the steering wheel, staring into the haze, and I knew he was trying to find somewhere for us to stop for the night. If we didn’t, we were going to have an accident at this rate.
Finally, about two miles later, we saw a sign for a motel and he took the next exit, searching out the run-down little motel and pulling up out front. We waited several minutes for Nova and Joan to pull up and discussed through open windows our plan of action.
The walls were smeared with blood and empty suitcases littered the parking lot, and it was obvious that there had been fights to the death there at some point or another. One of the motel doors hung on one remaining hinge, and even over the lashing rain you could hear the screech of the wooden door on the ground as the wind moved it back and forth. But the thing that struck me the most was the caved-in roofs of two of the rooms. It was as if something had fallen from the sky and crashed through the ceiling.
“I say we get to the main office and find keys, and then all bunk in one room for the night. One of us stay on guard at all times and keep an eye out for looters,” Mikey suggested.
“We should park around back. This isn’t our truck, after all. We wouldn’t want anyone to think we’re someone we’re not, now, would we?” Nova replied dryly.
Mikey thought it over before nodding. “Okay, let’s look for keys first, and then move the trucks afterwards.”
We all agreed and loaded up with weapons, advising Joan to once again stay in the truck, for both her safety and ours. She was sweet, but she was a walking, talking, and singing liability. Not to mention that she cha-cha’d at the most inopportune moments.
We climbed out of our respective trucks and were soaked to the bone within seconds. I kept my grip on my machete tight as we moved hurriedly toward the little office. Nova tried the handle and it turned easily under her hand. She let the door swing open and then thumped on the side wall twice. We waited for deaders to appear, but after a few seconds of nothing we all moved inside, glad to be out of the rain. We held our weapons high just in case, though, since it had been almost impossible to hear anything with the rain pelting us.
The air stilled as we waited for our eyes to adjust to the dimness. I stamped my foot on the rickety floorboards and we continued to patiently wait for any sign of a deader.
“I guess it’s clear,” Nova said happily just as we heard a loud bang from one of the back rooms. “Or not,” she added with a roll of her eyes.
We moved behind the counter, keeping our eyes alert for any movement. There was a door that led to a back office, and Nova knocked loudly on it, receiving a loud thump and a groan in return from a zombie on the other side. She turned to look at us with a raised eyebrow.
“Leave it” I said. “No point in putting ourselves at risk unless we need to.”
I pointed to the wall of keys next to us, indicating that we had everything we needed right there. There were a lot of keys—way more than what there had seemed from the front of the motel—and I had to assume that it stretched around the back quite a bit. That freaked me out, because we couldn’t see back there, yet it was possibly the safest place to bunk for the night since it was out of sight.
We each grabbed a selection of keys before rooting through the drawers and shelves in the small space behind the counter for anything of use, but as usual, there wasn’t much. I looked outside at the pouring rain and steeled myself to go back out into the frigid cold.
We moved briskly past our trucks and around toward the back of the motel, finding a parking lot full of deaders all staring intently into the sky, their hands reaching for the thing that was hitting them. Thankfully, the rain was also masking our scent, and we quickly retreated around to the front to discuss our options.
“This really isn’t a choice. We need to fight them and take shelter inside,” Nova said.
“I don’t like it,” I replied. And I didn’t. It was a shitty plan, and I didn’t want to do it. But I knew it was completely pointless to disagree, since we needed to take shelter from the storm somewhere. Nova was still staring at me, and I relented. “Fine. But I don’t like it. I just want that to be clear.”
“I’ll add it to the list of other shit you don’t like, darlin’,” Nova replied.
“I’m not that bad,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, you are,” Nova chuckled.
I looked sideways at Mikey, who automatically held his hands up. “I didn’t say anything.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and then turned and scowled at Nova. “What-the-fuck-ever. Let’s just get this over with, please,” I huffed out in annoyance and worry.
Nova pulled out her two guns and grinned. “The rain will mask the sound.” She wriggled her eyebrows up and down and moved around the corner.
I was a terrible shot and the first to admit it, but nine times out of ten guns were typically useless, the only exception that of an emergency situation. Guns were loud; they signaled your whereabouts to anyone and everything within a ten-mile radius, and that made them just as deadly to the user as they were to their intended victim. But some days, like today, I found myself jealous of Nova’s experience and accuracy.
I checked behind us one last time before following her around. The deaders were still staring up at the sky, making the weird, throaty sounds they make, when Nova began shooting at them. Their bodies fell to the ground in crumpled heaps one at a time as I looked on, impressed.
I marveled as she moved forward, shooting over and over, and the zombies dropped like flies. Those that she missed, either Mikey or I took out with our machetes. They turned to us like babies reaching for their mamas, their gummy, rotten mouths snapping for a breast or a bottle. Within five minutes the lot was clear of their deadly mouths, and they remained prone and completely dead on the ground.
Nova swung around to face me, grinning from ear to ear, and actually looked happy. She stuck her tongue out to catch the raindrops on it and shook her head from side to side like a dog shaking water from its fur.
I remembered her looking that happy right before we went on our first scavenging mission together. I smiled, wishing I could still see her as the woman I had then, instead of the woman I saw now. She was still Nova, but now I could see her cracks, and I could see her brokenness. Things were always easier when you didn’t know each other’s secrets.
“I hate the rain,” I replied with contempt. My clothes were beginning to stick to me as the rain soaked me to the bone, and my hair, though tied back and away from my face, clung around my neck, making me feel choked and claustrophobic.
“Let’s clear some rooms,” Mikey said, and patted my shoulder comfortingly.
Nova tilted her face back up to the sky and opened her mouth, letting the rain fall inside. I turned and followed Mikey over to one of the closed doors, his hand first trying the door handle and when it didn’t open, he moved to the next one along.
“We’ll check the locked rooms afterwards. The unlocked ones are the ones for concern right now,” he explained, and I nodded in agreement.
I was cold and soaked to the bone, and wanted nothing more than to climb into one of those beds—beds that previously I would have looked down my nose at, since I wouldn’t have been caught dead staying at such a gritty little motel—but now it was a dream come true. Beds, and duvets, and pillows! After sleeping in the truck for a couple of days, I was more than ready for a real bed to sleep in.
Mikey tried the next handle. The door opened up easily, and I readied myself just in case something dead was inside and waiting to attack us. A set of eyes stared back at me, and I raised my gore-covered machete higher, flinching when a scream broke free from the mouth of the person inside.
Because the one thing deaders don’t do…is scream.
I stared into the dark, unsure of what I was seeing and hearing, and of what to do. Nova pushed past me and ran into the room like a bull in a china shop, and the screaming increased for a second before abruptly stopping.
Mikey was at my shoulder staring in, and when the screaming stopped he stepped out of the rain and inside the foul-smelling room. My eyes adjusted and I saw Nova sat on the end of the bed with her hand firmly clamped over the mouth of a child who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven. The kid was thrashing wildly in Nova’s arms, eyes wild, and still screaming behind her hand, but she didn’t let go.
Mikey and I quickly checked out the rest of the room—declaring it clear, if not disgusting—before coming back to Nova and the child. I knelt down in front of them, glancing briefly at Nova who looked as helpless as I felt. At first the slender frame and long hair of the child led me to believe it was a girl, but on closer inspection I knew it was a little boy. My eyes met his as he continued to pant and claw at Nova’s hand, tears streaming from his wild sunken eyes.
I placed a gentle hand on his knee. “It’s okay, we’re alive, and we won’t hurt you.”
He stopped thrashing for a moment and I smiled, leaning in a little closer. Seconds later, his legs kicked out, catching me in the right boob, and I fell back with a howl of pain, clutching at my injured breast. This only seemed to rile him up further and he screamed wildly behind Nova’s hand. She let go with a scream of her own, and he darted from her lap and straight out the door.
“He bit me. He fuckin’ bit me!” Nova held up her hand, and sure enough there was a crescent mark of a mouth on her palm. A little blood ringed it, but thankfully for her, he hadn’t done any real damage.
“Welcome to my world,” I said quietly, my hand tentatively reaching for the bite mark on my shoulder that Nova had stitched back together.
She stood up sharply and ran to the door. “You little punk, I’ll fuckin’ find you!” she called out after him.
“Nova!” Mikey yelled, pushing her out of the way to see where the kid had gone. “We need to find him. He’s just scared.”
“He fuckin’ should be,” she snarled.
I stood up, feeling winded and sore from the breast kick, and I rubbed at my aching chest as I came to stand next to them.
“Shut up,” I snapped at her. “He was frightened.”
She glared at me, and I met her glare with a raised eyebrow until she relented. “Leave the little shit, we need to clear this place,” she said through gritted teeth and left the room.
“Where did he come from?” Mikey asked.
I shook my head. “No clue.” I looked back around the room, seeing the mess and the haphazardness of everything. “Where is his family?”
Mikey turned to look. “I think he’s alone,” he replied, sounding angry and helpless.
I glanced up at him, unsure of what to do. I didn’t want to leave that kid running around on his own like that, but I also didn’t want to go looking for him in the torrential rain. Besides, who knows where he could have run off to? If he’d survived this long with either a group or on his own, I had to trust my gut instinct that he would be okay out there. If he was on his own, I wondered how long he had been like that. How long had he been surviving like this? He was young, he couldn’t fight zombies—shit,
I
could barely fight zombies, and I was a grown-assed woman.
The sound of a gunshot next door made me jump, and I left the filthy room to follow after Nova, deciding that once we knew this place was clear I could figure out what to do about the kid. Hell, maybe he’d come back all on his own and I wouldn’t need to go looking for him.
Next door, Nova had put down a deader that looked incredibly old—possibly from the original outbreak. We didn’t see many of those anymore. Or if you did, they were bones in a heap with a snapping mouth. Just as dangerous if you got close to them, but at least they couldn’t really chase you. She came back out from the bathroom looking frustrated.
“Two down,” she said, and left the room.
We cleared all twenty rooms of deaders, thankfully finding only a handful trapped inside, leaving us with plenty of relatively clean rooms to choose from. There were family rooms that interconnected with a room next door, and we chose one of these to be our base for the night. We could all have a little privacy from each other if need be, but we’d also be close enough that if shit went down, we would all be there to clear out at the same time.
I dragged the top cover off the bed and shook it out outside, letting the dust fly up. The rain dampened it, but it was also a way of refreshing the musty fabric. I placed it back on the bed and climbed on top, pulling it around me, greedy for its warmth. Now that I was inside, the chill was really getting into my bones and my teeth began to chatter.
“Do you want me to take first watch?” Joan asked with sincerity.
I almost laughed, but managed to refrain. While it was kind of her to offer, there was no way in hell that I would get any sleep if she were on lookout for us. We all declined, and I offered to go first, which she seemed incredibly grateful for. Her eyes had a faraway look, and kept swimming out of focus with tiredness. After a quick meal of something indescribable and incredibly salty and chewy from the stash of food from the stolen truck, Nova and Joan bunkered down.
I clicked their door closed once I heard both of them begin to snore incredibly loudly. Being awake was one thing, but being awake listening to other people sleeping was another.
“You should get some sleep,” I said to Mikey.
He was on middle watch after me, and that totally sucked for him, because that was the worst one in my eyes. He had pulled another blanket from one of the other vacant rooms and had it wrapped around his shoulders. He was shaking as much as I was from the cold, and I hoped that the room would heat up soon. Neither of us wanted to start a fire since we’d have to then open the door to let the smoke out, and also the light would give an indication that someone was there. And in the dead of night we did not want anyone sneaking up on us, even if we were heavily armed and willing to kill for our survival.
“I’m too cold to sleep,” he chattered. “I’m going to change. I found some clothes in the suitcase in the bathroom. They’re not mine, but they’re dry.”
I made a face and he nodded in agreement but shambled off to change anyway. It was always creepy wearing someone else’s clothes, especially knowing that person was more than likely dead, or worse: the walking dead. But it was always worth it when you got to peel away your old gore- and grime-soaked clothes and dress in something relatively clean. A few minutes later he came back, still shivering but not as much as before, and he sat on the edge of the bed with his blanket around his shoulders.
“There’s more clothes. You should probably change too,” he murmured, a chill running through his body and making him do a weird body tremble. “You don’t want to catch a cold.”
In the grand scheme of things, a cold seemed the least of my worries, but then realizing I had only just gotten rid of a cold, I had to agree. I stood up, moved into the small bathroom, and bent to look through the small suitcase of clothes. It was hard to see anything in the dark and I instinctively went to turn on the light switch but stopped myself at the last moment with a sigh.
I rooted through the clothes, picking out what I could between the brief flashes of lightning that lit up the small window. There really wasn’t anything useful other than the actual clothing itself, and I quickly picked out a vest top and blouse, plus a long cardigan to go over the whole thing. Jeans which were way too long for me but could be rolled up, made it into my keep pile, but I was almost heartbroken to see no clean socks. I would never wear a dead person’s panties, but socks I had no problem with.
Reluctantly I dropped my blanket and peeled my dirty, ripped clothing away from my equally dirty and beat-up body, and I redressed as quickly as I could. I fingered the large hole in my old T-shirt, the bite mark from the deader and the slash across the middle making it abundantly clear how close I had come to being zombie food.
Cold covered my arms, goose bumps blanketed my flesh, and my teeth chattered even louder than previously as I struggled with still slightly damp skin to get my foot in the jeans. I took off my socks and wrung them out, not wanting to put them on, but not wanting to go barefoot, either.
I grabbed the blanket from the floor and wrapped it back around my shoulders, my toes going numb as I pilfered through the clothing hunting for I wasn’t really sure what. I came up with a short-sleeved T-shirt, which I tried to tie around one of my feet to keep it from getting too cold. It was uncomfortable, and I looked ridiculous, but heat began to claw back into my numb toes, so I grabbed another T-shirt and gave my other foot the same treatment. I took one of the smaller towels in the room and wrapped it around my wet hair and then stared at my reflection.
I was skin and bones, as pale as snow, and with dark rings under my eyes; the new clothes hung from my skinny frame and I looked forlornly into the face of someone I barely recognized anymore. I wondered sadly where she had gone, and if I would ever find that woman again. Or if she really had died so many years ago, along with her husband, leaving behind just this empty shell. I tipped my head to one side and pulled the towel from my hair, roughly rubbing it over my dark locks until they were just damp and not sopping wet anymore.
I ran my fingers through the dark waves, tugging at the knots and tangles until I was satisfied that it was the best I could do. I felt lost inside and I looked dead on the outside, haunted and vacant, and I wondered how long it would be before my body finally joined my soul in hell.