“You wash in the river?” he asked, pulling a weird face.
“Yes, how else am I going to stay clean out here? Why, where do you wash?”
He didn't answer.
“And you think I'm strange for washing in the river?” I tried not to smirk and walked ahead of him.
“Why don't we sleep in the car tonight?” he asked as we approached the vehicle.
I didn't need to answer that, because as we got closer we both saw two of the windows had been
smashed in and there was blood smeared across the back windshield.
“You can sleep in it if you want, but it doesn't look that safe to me,” I said, opening the driver's side
door.
“You found anything useful?” I asked while searching under the front seat.
“A gum wrapper and a lighter.”
“Keep the lighter.” I said at the same time I found a sealed chocolate bar.
“Yummy!” I said, excitedly.
“What you got?”
“Nothing,” I said, stuffing it in my pocket.
“It's like that is it,” He eyed me suspiciously.
“Finders keepers!” I said.
“Oooh, a pack of mints.”
“Mints aren't going to fill you up,” I said, closing the door and walking round to the trunk.
Lane went to open the trunk, then stopped and looked at me.
“You don't think there's one in there do you?”
“No. I don't think they hibernate.”
He lifted the lid and my heart sank. I was hoping for something, a bottle of water, an extra blanket,
even a magazine would have made me happy.
“Duct tape, cable ties, garbage bags, and a shovel.” Lane listed the items in the trunk. “What the
fuck? Was this guy a serial killer?”
“No idea, but take the shovel.”
Lane hesitantly lifted the shovel out, inspecting it.
I reached in and grabbed the duct tape.
“What do you need that for?” he asked.
“It's useful for covering cuts and grazes, don't want anything getting infected, and I also use the
stuff to secure Butchy.”
“Butchy?”
“My weapon, I'm kinda attached to it. I've got to look after it, don't want it falling apart. C'mon, let's
find somewhere to camp.” I said, shoving the tape in my bag.
“Like camping?” he asked. “In a tent?” he added.
“A tent? Is that a joke?”
He shrugged and slammed the trunk louder than necessary.
I cringed and looked around, hoping there were no zombies around to have heard it.
“Sorry, I forget.”
“Where do you sleep every night?” I asked.
“Inside cars, or on the rooftops.”
I looked back at the car. “We definitely can't sleep in this car.”
“So if you don't sleep in a tent where do you sleep?” he asked.
“In the trees.”
He looked at me like I'd just said something in Mandarin.
“You sleep in the trees?”
“Yes, it's the safest place. Zombies wander regardless of the time, they're completely retarded like
that. They stumble around all night long in the dark, I'm not likely to roll out a sleeping bag on the
ground.”
I started walking into the trees, leaving him behind, still processing what I had said.
“The river's this way,” I pointed. “So if we can find a safe-looking tree somewhere this way, I don't
want to lose my bearings from the road, though.”
“What do you mean by
safe-looking
?”
I mentally sighed. It was like having a toddler around, one that continuously keeps asking
why
.
“One with big branches.” He still looked confused. “The branches need to be wide enough to sleep
on comfortably without falling off and high enough off the ground.”
“What happens if you do fall off?”
“I think you should be more afraid of what I'm going to do to you if you don't shut up.”
“I dunno, I kinda like the sound of that.” he said with a playful smile.
“You're disgusting!”
“Sorry, but you're the first female I've seen in a month that hasn't tried to kill me.”
“Don't be so sure about that, I still might change my mind about you.”
“You're still as hot as hell!”
I stopped and looked at him, I mean really looked at him.
“I haven't washed my hair in over a week, I have dirt under my fingernails, I kinda stink because I
ran out of deodorant, my lips are as chapped as fuck, and I turned my underwear inside out this
morning because I didn't feel like taking a dip into the freezing river. But you're right, Lane, I'm so
incredibly hot right now, and you, I mean wow, I'm getting excited just looking at you, do you
wanna take me right here on the muddy ground or do you wanna do it against one of the many
trees? Take your pick.”
He grunted a laugh and stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. “I see you haven't
lost your sense of humor... or your foul mouth,” he said, lighting a cigarette.
Lane trailed behind me like we were on some nature walk, taking in all the scenery. I led the way, I
doubt Lane had any idea where he was going.
I rubbed at my braids. My hair itched and pulled where I'd braided it close to my scalp, in an
attempt to keep it off my face. I still couldn't bring myself to cut it off. I licked my lips without
thinking about it and silently scolded myself for it as it only made them rougher.
When the river finally came into view Lane quickened his pace and overtook me. He dumped his
rucksack and shovel on the ground and headed for the edge of the water. I dropped my bag on the
ground, but kept my weapon in my hand, and walked up behind him.
Lane stopped in mid-drink, with his hands cupped hovering below his mouth, he glanced back at
me, and his eyes drifted down to the weapon in my hand.
“You planning on using that on me?” he asked.
“Huh?”
He nodded his head at the weapon in my hand.
“What, no, I always keep it close.”
He went back to drinking the water but stopped when he realized I was still watching him.
“You going to have some?” he asked.
“Noooo...”
“Why not?”
I couldn't believe this guy. He got straight A's, but couldn't use his brain to figure out the water
might be contaminated.
“The water could be contaminated,” I said, kneeling down to wash my hands.
His hands fell apart and he shook them off, watching me as I washed zombie blood off my hands.
“I only use the water to wash in, but I never let any of the water get into an open wound. Also, think
about it, zombies take midnight strolls, how many of them do you think fell into the river and didn't
get out again?”
Lane's face paled a little.
“I'm guessing you've done that before?”
He nodded, looking slightly sick.
“I can't believe you're still alive.” I laughed. “It's the reason I don't eat the fish in here, that's
probably how a lot of the hikers hiding out in the woods caught the disease.”
“What
do
you drink?” he asked, looking worried still.
“Anything but this water,” I replied, air drying my hands as I stood up.
I picked up my weapon and walked back into the woods a little way, and stopped when I walked
into a smallish clearing with a tree log and enough space for a fire. I looked up at the trees walking
around in a circle.
“This will do,” I said, still looking up, and I bumped into Lane. “Watch it!” I grumbled stepping
back.
We only had about an hour before nightfall and I was hungry and wanted to eat and get settled in
the tree.
I searched around for firewood, Lane was always only a few feet away from me. I suddenly felt like
my shadow had come to life. I arranged the wood and Lane watched with over the top fascination.
“What?” I said.
“You know how to make a fire?”
“Of course, you don't?”
He shook his head.
“How do you warm anything up?”
“I don't, whatever I find I just eat straight out of the tin or carton.”
“What have you got to eat now?” I asked, silently praying he had some food in his bag. I didn't
really want to share my rations.
“Pack of mints and half a packet of dry cornflakes.”
“That's all the food you have?”
“We're not all trained in hunting and scavenging.”
“You just came from town, you telling me you didn't find one thing?”
“Were you not in the same town? That place was swamped, I didn't want to overstay my welcome.
Anyway, there's always the odd house along the way.”
“Yes, but most of the individual houses along the road have already been raided dozens of times by
people like us.”
I got the fire going and searched around in my bag, lifting out the canned tin of soup, then I pulled
out the small saucepan I kept at the bottom.
“What are you, Mary Poppins?”
“I like my soup warm.” I said, searching for my tin opener.
I tipped my soup into the pan and held it above the fire, it took awhile, but it was the way I had been
getting the job done.
Lane looked at the saucepan.
Really? I have to share my rations with him as well.
The only way I had made it this far was by learning to survive on my own the best I could, which
didn't mean sharing. Even when I had been staying at the high school I still had to go out and find
my own food during the day.
I ignored his stares and stirred my soup.
After seeing him drink out of the river, I didn't even want to share my spoon with him.
“I thought you would have been in the same facility as me,” he said.
“No, why would you think that?”
“Because there were others from our school there, your dad was ex-military so they would have
given him a place at the facility, did they not?”
“How do you know my dad was ex-military?”
Lane pulled out a comic book from his bag and settled across from me with his legs crossed.
“Lane,” I said trying to get his attention.
He shifted around and held his comic up higher, covering his face.
“Every time you had Biology I used to find a reason to visit my locker after class... and... I never
really needed anything.”
Lane's locker was right next to my Biology classroom. I waited for Pip which always took a few
extra minutes and Lane would always be waiting by his locker, always searching for a book, or
looking over his shoulder for his friends. And now he's just admitted he was secretly waiting to see
me. I had always wondered what he was doing there, as he always left his locker empty handed.
“Which facility were you in?” he asked.
“I wasn't in a facility?”
“What? Why not?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Where were you?”
“Lane, drop it. I said I don't want to talk about it.”
“Alex-”
“Do I need to shoot you to prove my point?” I said talking over him.
“You're so hostile,” Lane said, pulling out a different comic book.
“Being chased by zombies every other day can do that to you. Usually, when I see something on
two legs I end up bashing its head in.”
I stirred the soup, and Lane didn't bring it up again.
“The facility I was in, it was one of the new builds...”
Lane decided that if I didn't want to talk then he would do the talking for both of us.
“I was there for nearly eleven months, but then some of the military started been reassigned to other
areas, outside was falling apart, the disease was spreading and it was getting into the facility, and
eventually they started moving some of us. I was on the second transport bus out of there, they
moved us to different facility in Oregon. I was there with my parents for another five months before
the contamination seeped into the facility again. My mom got sick, then dad... I left with a small
group and we made it to a hospital that was still up and running with other survivors and-”
“And let me guess the disease started spreading inside the hospital or it got overrun with zombies,”
“The second one.”
“Well, what do you expect, it's the reason I avoid the main towns, the zombies are getting clever,
they know we group together in large buildings.”
“Then I was lucky enough to find a car that was working and I got the hell out of there, then when it
ran out of gas I started walking, looking for another safe house facility.”
“Nowhere is safe.”
I lifted the saucepan away from the fire and could feel Lane's eyes on me.
“I'll eat half then you can finish it off.” I grumbled, getting comfortable on the tree log I had
claimed as my own.
I started eating my soup, keeping one eye on the trees around us. Lane appeared oblivious to
anything and was too involved in his comic.
“How long had you really been following me?”
“From the town.”
“I dropped my weapon when I was inside that place when I was ambushed by a gazillion zombies,
that town was crawling with them like ants. You were either staying in the town, which would have
been suicide or you followed me
into
the town.”
“I may have seen you before,”
“Before?”
“There was a ranch on the outside of town, the one with the overturned horsebox in the front yard.”
“Hmm, I remember, it's where I found the soup and my bottled water. From the look of the place, I
think the previous owners had stayed there waiting it out. The way the windows had bars on them
and the makeshift alarm system made out of cans and tins... You were there?” I asked.
“I was asleep in the upstairs closet.” he replied.
“Is that what that lumping noise upstairs was? I thought it was a zombie so I made a quick exit.”
“No, it was me tripping out of the closet. Once I heard the alarm system rattle I thought I had
company. I grabbed my rucksack and jumped out the window, climbed around the porch roof, then
saw the back of you.”
“So you didn't think to call out to me? You thought it was a better idea to follow me into town like a
creepy stalker?”
“I didn't know it was you..
you
. I thought it was some random girl, and I followed her-you thinking
she was heading back to some safe house in the town.”
“That town was anything but safe.”
“You stole my soup and my bottled water.” he said.
“No, I didn't. I found them stashed inside the washing machine, I doubt you even checked the
washing machine.”
“The washing machine?”
“People that plan on staying in their homes get clever about hiding their food, just in case they have
visitors, but I think whoever was there was long gone, it looked as though they cleared out in a
hurry and took most of it. And if you followed me through town then you saw me get ambushed.
Thanks for stepping in to save me,”
“From the looks of it, you had it covered.”
“Yes, right up until those screaming demons showed up.”
Lane shuddered. “Those looked vicious.”
“That's what I thought, that's why I ran.”
“You're really good at it.”
“Good at what?”
“Killing zombies, you make it look awesome.”
“You think killing zombies is awesome?”
“You looked like something from COD.”
“What?”
“
Call Of Duty
. The way you ducked behind cars and ran along the sidewalk diving behind trash
cans, and crawling under shit.”
“Are you making fun of my survival skills?”
“No, I was just saying,”
“Well, I didn't know anyone was watching.”
“You were so quick at it, the way you took one out and moved straight onto the next-”
“Lane, can you stop, I'm trying to eat.”
“You must have killed a lot of zombies,”
“Still eating,”
“What's the youngest you've seen?”
I knew what he was talking about, and it wasn't something I wanted to talk about.
I shrugged. “I dunno, five-ish.”
“Did you, you know,”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just making conversation,”
“Well, you can stop now.” I said, standing up and walking over to him. “Here, try not to get too
many germs on my spoon.”
Lane didn't even bother to respond to my snarky comment and took the saucepan, lapping up the
soup. I took a sip from my bottled water. The last bottle of water I had.
“Do you have anything to drink?” I asked.
“Just a
Fanta
, but it's nearly all gone, and maybe some beer in my bag.”
I nodded and lovingly held onto my water bottle like it was my most prized possession.
“It's okay, I'm not thirsty at the moment.” he said.
“Filled up on too much river water no doubt.”
“Cute and funny,” Lane muttered in-between mouthfuls.
“I can hear you from over here.”
“How many do you think you've killed?”
I blew out a breath and placed my bottle back in my bag.
“How many have you killed?” I asked turning the question back on him.
He held the saucepan up, scraping every last drop out.
“Four.” he said.
“
Four
?” I repeated.
“Yes four,” he said again. “Have you forgotten how to count?” he added.
“Did you mean forty or fourteen hundred, if you did then you're beating me by a mile.”
“I meant four.”
“How are you still alive?
Four
? Have you been hiding in a hole I don't know about?”
“No, I just don't like killing them.”
“Four... Oh, I get it, you run away every time you come into contact with a zombie.”
“It's quicker than killing them.”
“I thought you would have loved all this blood and gore. I bet you used to play this sort of thing on
your Xbox.”
“Yes, but back then the zombies didn't jump out from the TV and try to eat me.”
“Four,” I said again, still amazed by the low number.
“Okay, so it's not a large number. What's yours then?”
“I dunno if I want to tell you my zombie-kill-list number.”
“Zombie-kill-list?”
“Oh yeah, I have one of those.”
“What, like fifty?” he said.
“No, more like two hundred and thirty-seven, oh, actually make that two hundred and thirty-nine
including those last two.”
Lane's eyes widened.
“You're like Xena the Zombie Princess.”
“Just trying to stay alive.”
“I don't know how you can do it? Kill them like that,”
“Because it's either them or me, and I like me more.”
“It's still hard, though.”
“They're not people anymore, Lane, they're empty shells. They don't know what they're doing. The
only thing they think about is feeding. They don't worry about washing, finding clean water,
shaving...” I said, looking at the rough stubble across Lane's jawline. “They don't even care if they
only have one shoe on. You can't feel sorry for them because the moment you do you'll start
hesitating.”
Lane rubbed his hand over his face. “I lost my razor,” he said.
“You can borrow mine in the morning if you want?”
“You shave?” he asked.
“Just because I live in the woods with the animals doesn't mean I want to look like one.”
“What do you shave?” he asked, licking the saucepan.
“None of your business.”
Ugh! Alex, what is wrong with you? First sharing a spoon, now a razor. What next? Clean Undies?
“Err... Alex?” Lane had been speaking, but I had zoned out and not been listening.
“What do you want me to do with this?” he asked, holding the pan up.
“Oh, right,” I leaned over and rummaged around in my bag for my bottle of body wash. “Squirt a
little of this in it and rinse it out in the river.”
He took the body wash bottle and looked confused.
“I'm sorry I left my dishwashing liquid at home.”
“It's all right. I already licked it clean for you.”
“If you lick my cutlery once more I'm going to punch you.” I said, standing up and snatching the
spoon away before he could lick it again. “Now hurry up and go and clean my saucepan.”
I sat back down and carefully tipped a minimal amount of water over the spoon and dried it on a
clean T-shirt from my bag. I had no idea whether it helped or not, but I didn't want to wash my
spoon in the river.