“Just get me out of this parking lot.”
Lane took a shortcut and drove up onto the side, and over, bumping the van back down on the other
side, and back onto the main road, then he accelerated as much as he could while weaving around
abandoned vehicles.
“You okay?” he asked, nudging me with his elbow.
“Um..no I'm fine.”
“Did it scratch you or anything?”
“Err, no,” I said, inspecting my hands, I had my hoodie on protecting my arms.
“Good,” He breathed a sigh of relief.
“There's glass all over my seat.”
“We'll stop in a minute and clean it up, and sort her out, my driving isn't helping, she must be
rolling around all over the place back there.”
I opened the hatch.
“Hey, Ozzy,” I said in a babyish voice.
Since caring for Ozma, Lane and I had both found out we speak babyish.
She snivelled and stuck out her bottom lip, and screamed again. Nothing I would say would calm
her, she either needed a bottle or Lane's arms, mine weren't good enough when she was upset.
I brushed a few pieces of glass onto the floor but decided to wait until we weren't moving. I
squished myself up to Lane and leaned back against him.
“There were so many.” I said.
“They must have been sleeping or busy eating. Can you imagine what would have happened if
they'd found us when we were inside.”
“We'd be dead. Probably in pieces right now.”
I looked out the window at the trees whizzing past, not really looking at anything.
“You sure you're okay? You look like you're in shock.”
I smiled and looked at him.
“Yes, I'm shocked you managed to knock that zombie's head off.”
He hinted a smile. “That was really badass. You should add those two to your zombie-kill-list.”
“Kill list? You still doing that?”
“Yep, those two were all yours. Oh, and tripping over that box was real smooth.”
Lane laughed, and I reached over and searched through the glove-box for a different CD. Ozma
loved music, maybe it would help calm her down. I pulled out a handful of CDs and laughed at the
top choice.
“What?”
I showed him the CD.
“No.” he said bluntly.
I laughed and placed the
Justin Bieber
CD under the pile. “Oooh, how about
All Time Low
?”
“Yes!” he replied. “Hey, Alex,”
“Yeah,”
I put the CD in and adjusted the volume, then looked back at him.
“What is it?”
“Back there... that was... we need to be more careful in the future, and no more shopping trips. We
can get what we need from house to house.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know there was a nest at the back of the store.” I smiled, but he didn't
look amused. “Lane, it's okay, we're both okay.”
He nodded and relaxed back in the seat.
“I thought you said essentials only?”
“Huh?”
“What's that?” he asked, pointing to a white and pink tube on the floor. I leaned over and picked it
up.
“Hand cream?” he said, reading the tube.
“Yes. Hand cream. I don't want to get sore, chapped hands, that will crack and split and become
open to infection. It's common sense.”
“And what's that?”
“Body lotion.... all right, I got a little carried away in the toiletries section. I'm a girl, I like to
moisturize.”
“Is that shaving foam?”
“Yes, but I got that for you as well. You look like you could do with a shave.”
He playfully frowned at me and rubbed the stubble on his chin.
“Grab my basket would ya?”
I bent over and picked up Lane's basket that still had most of the contents inside it. My empty
basket was on the seat next to me and the contents were all over the floor.
He stuck his hand in and pulled out a pair of black wayfarer sunglasses, and put them on.
I reached over and took the tag off for him.
“Yours should be in there somewhere.” he said.
I dug around in the basket and pulled out a pair of pink heart-shaped frames.
“Really?” I stuck them on my face and looked at him.
He laughed and I playfully punched him.
“Thanks.” I said.
“I knew you'd like them.”
“Hmm..”
“So where to now?” he asked.
“Whichever way the road takes us.” I replied.
“You still not bothered about going to Colorado?”
“No. I'm only interested in finding a safe house. I can't imagine Colorado is any different to here.
The disease has probably spread and taken over since those people told Crystal and Thom about it.”
Lane didn't answer. I think he wanted to travel that way, but I didn't see the point. At the minute we
were doing just fine, traveling from town to town, not in any rush, spending nights where we
thought it was safe and leaving when we ran out of food, the past six weeks had been rather
uneventful until today.
Lane pulled over to the side of the road.
“I want to check under the hood, you look after Ozma.” Lane said, climbing out.
I quickly opened the back of the van. Ozma crawled across the mattress and reached her arms up to
me. I picked her up and tried my best to make a drink for her whilst she was still in my arms, at
least she wasn't crying anymore. She was a happy child normally, but I think zombies banging on
the van would upset anyone. She held the bottle herself and I carried her back to Lane, checking all
around us at the same time.
“What's wrong with it?” I asked, hitching Ozma up my hip.
“I don't know.”
“We can't be without the van.” I said.
“I know. I need to top up the water anyhow.”
I looked up the road and saw a house.
“You can use the water from that house. I'm not wasting our water on the van.”
“Okay,” Lane said, leaning against the van, stroking Ozma's head.
Lane noticed my concerned face and reached for me, and wrapped his arms around the both of us.
“We're gonna be just fine, Alleycat, you'll see.”
“I miss the van.” Lane moaned, kicking a stone across the road.
I looked down at Ozma and pulled a silly face, she giggled and tried to turn her head around to see
Lane. Ozma was so small she still fit inside her baby carrier, the one Crystal had been wearing the
first time we met her and Thom. Only now Ozma had put on a few extra pounds and my back was
aching from all the walking and having to carry her, but I wanted Lane's arms free for if we ran into
any zombies, he was ultimately stronger, and was finally getting over his fear of zombies. They still
scared the shit out of him, but at least now he didn't hesitate and it didn't take him ten minutes to
finish one off. He had changed a lot over the past months, he was more responsible, and I depended
on him a lot more than I liked to admit. And now I had Ozma to care for, I needed him, I couldn't do
this on my own.
Lane looked back at us, I hadn't replied to his earlier comment.
“I miss it too, but there's nothing we can do. You knew the day would come when it would either
break down for good or it would eventually run out of gas. Anyway, if it hadn't run out of gas I
think the engine would have given up... or blown up, it was making some weird noises.”
“Speaking of noises, do you hear that?” Lane asked, looking up at the sky.
“Over there.” I pointed.
The sound of an approaching airplane grew louder, and a few moments later it flew straight over
our heads. I caught up to Lane and we watched as the plane dropped something.
“What's that?” I asked.
“It's making a drop.”
The landscape was open, overgrown fields with trees running along the edge, and on the other side
of the road, there was a very long walk over more farmland which led to a hilly mountain verge. In
the distance, there was a large building with security fencing. The drop had been made right next to
the fencing. We continued walking, I handed my bat to Lane and pulled out my binoculars. I zoned
in on the large crate that had just been dropped, it had numbers on the side. I stood still, carefully
watching the fencing, and saw movement on the other side.
“What is that place?” Lane asked, taking the binoculars before I had finished with them.
“I see people,” Lane said.
“People or zombies?”
“Err... no, they are definitely people, and they're opening the gates at the front.”
“Is that a safe house?” I asked, pulling on his arm, wanting my binoculars back to see for myself.
“Just wait,”
“What else do you see?”
“Three... no four people. One has a rifle, and one is carrying a pitchfork, the other two are opening
the crate.”
“And?” I prodded him, wanting more details.
“And one is army.”
“Real army, or someone dressing up like army?”
“I don't know, I can't see that close, but I think he's spotted us.”
“What?”
“And now he's waving at us.”
“Does he look friendly?”
“I don't know. What kind of a question is that? One of them is holding a gun. Oooh...”
“What now?”
“That building is actually a prison.”
“Are they inmates?” I asked, slightly panicked.
“Not sure, there's a girl with them, but I can't imagine the government would be supplying criminals
with supplies. And now military boy is on his way over here.”
“Is he armed?”
“Negative, on foot, no weapon visible.”
Lane handed me the binoculars, and I looked through them while trying to keep them out of reach
from Ozma.
The military boy was walking this way with his hands in his pockets, I couldn't see a weapon, but
that didn't mean he didn't have a knife in his pocket. More people had joined the others outside and
were helping to carry boxes in through the gates, the only one that wasn't helping was the one with
the rifle.
Lane looked at me. “What do we do?”
“Try not to get shot or knifed.” I said.
“You don't think they're friendly?”
“I have no idea. We can't trust anyone, though. Remember last time?”
We started walking along the road, slowing down before the military boy got too close.
“Keep an eye on his hands, you don't know what he's got in those pockets.” I whispered.
“Well, I don't think he's hiding a gun in them.”
“Shh...”
We came to a stop, and the military boy pulled out his hands from his pockets and held them up to
show us he was unarmed and meant us no harm. He stopped opposite us, looking us up and down.
His eyes lingered on me a moment longer than necessary and I think Lane noticed because he
shifted around on his feet. The military boy's eyes stopped on Ozma.
“What's your name?” he asked, looking at Lane.
“I'm Lane, this is Alex, and the little one is Ozma.” Lane replied.
The military boy nodded and smiled at Ozma.
His smile looked genuine, nothing like the creepy smile Dominic gave us when we arrived at the
Lab. I took a moment to give him the once-over. He was wearing boots, camouflage trousers, a
white T-shirt that looked spotless and dog tags around his neck. He had soft floppy brown hair, a
splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose, large brown eyes, dark eyebrows and thick
eyelashes, and a scar under his right eye. He didn't look much older than us.
Well, if he was impersonating he was doing a good job of it, I didn't think the outfit was borrowed.
“I'm Josh,”
“You army?” Lane asked.
“Yes.” Josh answered, looking between us. “Are you okay?” he asked, taking a step toward us and I
instinctively moved back a step.
“I'm sorry, we've had a bad run-in with humans before,” I said.
“Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, we've heard stories about some places. We've got one guy inside, the last place
he stayed in was some science lab, they chained him to a fence which had zombies already chained
to it, for stealing a cookie.”
Lane raised an eyebrow at me.
“What's his name?” I asked.
“Jasper.”
Jasper?
I didn't recall a Jasper, but other survivors could have found their way to the Lab.
“Did he call the place the Lab?”
“Err... yeah, I think he did. Have you been there?”
“Yes, and we couldn't wait to get away from it.” I replied.
“Jasper said a few of the men would get dressed up, pretending they were military, then they would
go and steal food drops left for another safe house. Jasper escaped and came here with a girl called
Tammy.”
“Tammy's here?” I asked, not believing what I was hearing.
“She's inside if you want to come in and see for yourself?” Josh said, smiling at me.
“Is that a safe house?” Lane asked.
Josh nodded.
“We were in one of the new builds before, but the plumbing was a nightmare, they were built too
quickly and were full of faults. The building was compromised one night, but we managed to take
control of the situation, but a couple of my guys got infected and within weeks the disease started
spreading. Then there was another zombie attack and we couldn't hold them off, a lot of us fled and
the rest of us stayed in a group and made our way here. The prison was thankfully empty when we
got here, I think all the inmates had been let out.”
“You have drops delivered here?” Lane said.
“Yes, Dudley is our radio guy, he managed to get in touch with another base and we informed them
the safe house location had changed so they deliver the drops here instead, which is handy for us.
You guys hungry? We've got plenty of food inside.”
My stomach growled as if on cue.
Josh tilted his head toward the prison, I took one look at Lane, then followed Josh. I noticed Josh
had a gun tucked into the back of his belt, but he hadn't even reached for it once.
“Where have you guys come from?” Josh asked.
“Originally Washington, but we've been traveling around, Oregon, Idaho, into Utah, trying to find a
safe house.” I replied.
“Well, it's your lucky day, and don't worry we're all a friendly bunch here.” Josh said, giving me a
wink.
Lane scowled and I think Josh saw it.
“We have other children here. I think the youngest is ten months. How old is your little one?”
“She's sixteen months, I think,” I replied.
“You can't remember when she was born?” Josh asked surprised.
“She's not ours.” I said.
“Oh,” Josh said, looking at us both differently.
“Her parents got killed, so we took care of her.”
I left out the part where Ozma's mother got eaten and bled out in the van, and I shot her father in the
head.
“That's a really big thing to do. Not many people would have done that.”
“Well, I wasn't about to leave her and let her die of starvation or get eaten.”
“How long have you had her?”
“Just over four months.”
“You've done really well by the looks of it. So did you two meet while traveling?”
“We, um...” I trailed off and looked at Lane then back at Josh. “Brother.” I blurted.
“Married!” Lane said.
“So you two are brother and sister? And you're married?” Josh asked slightly amused.
“No, that came out wrong. I'm still on the defence from the last place we were at.” I said.
“You don't need to worry about that sort of thing happening here.” Josh said. “So how do you really
know each other?”
“We went to school together, we're friends.” I said.
“
Close
friends.” Lane added.
Another boy jogged over to us, he wasn't dressed in military gear, but he did have dog tags around
his neck.
“Ah, guys this is Luke, Luke this is Lane and Alex, and this is Oz..”
“Ozma.” I finished for him.
“Well, it's great to see some new faces. Welcome, mi casa es su casa.” Luke said.
I smiled, not getting any weird vibes from either of them, they both appeared to be the real deal.
And Josh couldn't stop looking at me, it wasn't until someone called him away to help with the
boxes that he tore his eyes away from me.
“I'll show you inside,” Luke said. “That's Jenny and Stew helping with the boxes.” Luke pointed.
The girl waved at us before Stew dumped a box into her arms.
Lane tapped me on the shoulder. “
Brother
?
Friend
?” he mouthed.
Oh, so now he was annoyed when I used the term
friend
. And as for
brother
, I didn't really know
myself why I had used the word
brother
.
“I don't know it just came out. What, it's not okay when I tell people we're friends, but you can?” I
waved him off, not wanting to discuss this right now.
Luke looked at us trying to hide his smirk over our obvious couples squabble.
We walked in through the gate as more unfamiliar faces walked past us to help with the boxes. Luke
led us inside, into a long grey corridor where the boxes had been stacked against the wall.
It took me a moment to realize the lights were switched on.
“Generators?” Lane asked.
“Nope, the power was already on when we got here.”
“No way!” I said.
“I know, we were just as surprised, the prison must be running on different power cables or
something, but don't ask me I'm not the electrician, that would be Dudley.
Josh came through the doors behind us.
“Luke, I can walk them inside, you go help Jenny with the boxes.”
“Sure thing.” Luke said and ducked out the door.
Josh waved at us to follow.
“You don't want us to strip?” I said.
“Well, I'm not stopping you if you want to, but it's not necessary.” he said, trying not to smirk.
“But we could be infected.” I said.
“Are you infected?” Josh asked.
“Nooo,” I said.
“Then I'll take your word for it. You seem like decent people.”
“A little too trusting, don't you think?” I said.
Josh stopped in front of a door.
“If you're really that desperate to take off your clothes in front of me then you should drop by my
cell later, it's the one with the
Batman
mural on the wall, Luke's doing not mine.”
Lane cleared his throat and Josh looked at him like he'd forgotten he was still standing there.
“It was a joke,” Josh said, holding his hands up innocently.
He held the door open for us, and we walked into another long corridor, then we followed him
along several more corridors, passing a large cafeteria room, a gym, and a games room which even
included a Xbox. We eventually came to a stop where the individual cells were.
“There are bunks in each cell, we have plenty spare so just take your pick. Will you two be
sharing?” Josh asked, aiming the comment at me.
“New people!” a girl squealed, running down the stairs.
The girl was about the same height as me, straight brown hair, curvier, with a little more weight on
her bones. Her nails were painted bright pink, her eyelids had been brushed with smoky grey
eyeshadow and her cheeks were shimmery.
She bounced to a stop in front of Lane. “Hello,” she said, grinning at him.
“Hi,” Lane said politely.
“This is Stacey,” Josh said. “Stacey, these guys just arrived, do you think you can show them
around and help them pick out a cell, I need to go and help with the rest of the boxes.”
“Of course,” Stacey replied.
Josh stepped over to Stacey and they exchanged a few words quietly, then he looked back at me and
winked again before walking off, and Lane glared at the back of him.
“What are your names?” Stacey asked.
“Lane, I'm Alex, and this is Ozma.”
“She's so tiny.” Stacey said, letting Ozma grab her finger.
“This way,” she said, jogging back up the metal stairs. “I'm so pleased you're here, it can get a bit
boring in this place stuck with the same people day after day. How old are you?”
“We're both nineteen.” I answered.
“I'm sixteen.” Stacey supplied.
She walked along the walkway and stopped in front of one of the cells. The cells were small, with
open bars and reminded me of the TV show
Prison Break
. The cell Stacey had stopped in front of
had voile curtains hanging up inside and a dream catcher on the barred door.
“Josh tells me you're brother and sister, so Alex can bunk with me.” she said excitedly, pointing at
the bottom bunk. “I've always wanted a roomie.” she added.
I wondered if the poor girl had any friends. She was acting almost desperate for me to share a cell
with her.
I couldn't help but laugh at the looks she was giving us, she was probably wondering if either one of
us had been adopted or if we were step-siblings because Lane and I looked nothing like each other.
“Why did he say that? He knows you didn't mean it.” Lane huffed.
I shrugged. I didn't care where I slept as long as it was under a roof, and the bed was a bonus.
“Jasper needs a roomie, he's kinda on his own.”
“Right, Jasper, the one Tammy traveled here with?” I said.
“Yes, he's five cells that way.” Stacey pointed.