Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde (24 page)

“If it wasn't for me, we'd be walking right now,” she said.
“Plus it was your genius idea to hand out our fuel.”

“That was the only way to get them to let us go,” I loudly
protested.

“He was this close to just letting us go,” she said. “I had
it all under control until you butted in to the conversation.”

“Don't act like I didn't help,” I argued.

“I saw your hand on the door,” she said. “You were getting
ready to pick a fight. We’re lucky we're not all dead. If that guy wouldn't
have come along and recognized me . . .”

“You mean Scar?” I interrupted.

“If Scar wouldn't have interrupted, we might all be dead on
the side of the road now,” she said.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I am sure they would have kept you
for a pet, like you kept Rasputin.”

“Let's put it to a vote,” Felicity said, ignoring my not so
playful jab. “Everyone who thinks we should let me go see my mom and be with my
family, especially after I just saved our lives from blood thirsty bikers,
raise your hand.”

She raised her own hand. The cocky smile on her face meant
only one thing—that Benji had sided with her.

“Come on Benji,” I said, adjusting the rearview mirror to
see his hand fully extended. “We don't have enough gas for that.”

“Fair is fair,” he said. “She has a point.”

Sell out,
I thought.
Who's side are you on anyway?

“Two to one,” she said. “Looks like we're heading to Ojai.”

“I thought the saying was you can never go home again once
you're famous,” I said, turning onto the connecter and taking us up and over a
bridge toward Ojai. She cheered and Benji joined in.

Little Judas
, I thought.
You'd do anything to get
her attention
.

Was that a pang of jealousy I was feeling? I couldn't lie. I
did like Felicity, but I was trying to figure out if that was because of who
she was as a person or if it was because she was famous.

Give it time
, a dark little voice in the back of my
mind said.
Just give it time
.

“Don't worry,” she said. “I know my way around town like the
back of my hand. I could guide you there blindfolded. Plus I know an out-of-the-way
gas station you can hit up when it's time to go.”

We drove the short distance east into town and she guided us
along a series of roads toward her mom's place. Since she told me it was up on
a hill I wasn't all that worried. For some reason zombies tended to move with
the path of least resistance when left alone. Of course that was before they
began to form hordes and knock down walls, so I couldn't be sure I wasn't just
giving myself a false sense of security for nothing.

The road up to her mom's place looked like something out of
Christopher Robin's wildest fantasies. There was a crooked old tree and a
wooden mailbox with her new husband's name on it, SWANSON. I half expected
there to be a red balloon tied to it and one of the S's to be painted backwards.

“This is it,” she burst out, unable to contain her
excitement.

“Did you really grow up here?” Benji asked.

“Yep,” she said. “My dad lived in Las Vegas so my sister and
I would have to see him twice a month for the first few years after the
divorce. Mom gave up everything and moved us out here. When she remarried her
new husband moved us in with him out here. It's paradise. I wish I had never
left. After I started getting gigs in Hollywood she got an apartment out there
too, on Gower. That place was literally a roach motel.” She laughed. Benji
climbed up to hear her story. He was totally spellbound.

“She didn't come to live with you?” I found it hard to
believe. The media had always painted her mom to be the cause of all her
problems, a money hungry failed actress who pushed one daughter into acting and
the other into an early grave. Her little sister moved to Vegas at fourteen to
live with her dad and ended up an underage stripper at a biker bar outside
Glendale. She went missing for over a month then phoned in from Sturgis to say
she was still alive. Two weeks later she was found stabbed to death in a motel
in midtown Manhattan. No one knew how she got there. There were needle marks up
and down her arms. Felicity was just starting to become a household name. Her
sister's death pushed her over the edge. It was all the media would talk about
for nearly a year. The crime was never solved.

“After Cassie died, she thought about it,” Felicity said.
“The media began hounding her, following her around the grocery store. It took
a real toll on her marriage. I told her that she and Phil could come live with
me. I was leaving to shoot in Mexico and they could stay there while I was
gone. I was so excited when she said she would, but then she backed out at the
last minute.”

“Was that when you shot
Double Trouble
?” Benji asked.

“It was,” Felicity said, tearing up.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“I didn't realize how much I missed her,” Felicity said
laughing and fanning her tears away with her hand. “I can't wait to see her.”

“Here we go,” I said, driving up the hill. There was a Ford
F150 with huge monster truck tires in the driveway and a Subaru next to it in
front of a ranch style house. We parked and got out. I grabbed my blade and
held it out in front of me, twisting from side to side and leaning over to
stretch. I glanced around searching the trees for signs of people, living or
dead. It was eerily quiet but we appeared to be alone.

Thank God for small miracles
, I thought.

Benji and Felicity started to walk into the house but I
called out to stop them.

“Let me go first,” I said. “Just in case.”

Felicity looked annoyed but she didn't protest. I walked in
and she pointed to the right, toward the master bedroom. Moving along the
hallway I could see pictures of her and her sister from when they were kids.

Stay focused
, I thought.
There will be time to get
the full tour later
.

I hadn't wanted to come to Ojai in the first place. I was
damn sure I didn't want to get turned into the living dead for my troubles.

The bedroom door was ajar. I pulled it back slowly. A dry
wind coming in through the open window blew part of the curtains back, making
me freeze in place. Then I saw them. On the bed, dressed in their wedding
clothes, were an older man and woman. They were perfectly still with their eyes
open and just the hint of a smile on their faces. The woman was holding a note
in her hand.

No
, I thought.
Not another note. Not more tragedy.
Not today
.

But it wasn't in my control. Already Felicity was making her
way into the room. Deep down inside I wished I could protect her from what she
was about to see but I knew I couldn't. First Jackson and now this. It almost
made me want to give her back the pills I'd confiscated at the beach house.

“What's going on?” Her voice faltered. Even as she spoke she
knew the answer.

I stepped aside and bowed my head.

“No,” she cried. “No!”

“What is it?” Benji asked.

Felicity turned to me.

“Don't let him see this,” she said in a hushed tone. “Go out
in the living room and wait for me. Please?”

“Of course,” I said. I walked to the door and turned Benji
around, leading him away.

“Are they dead?” He looked up at me waiting for an answer he
already knew.

“Yeah,” was all I needed to say.

“What are we doing?”

“Giving Felicity some space,” I said. “It's a lot to take
under normal circumstances, much less on the same day as Jax.”

“I understand,” he said with a note of detached sadness in
his voice. I realized that I was the only one who still had family in our group
now. While I had seen more than my fair share of death I had never seen one of
my relatives killed by a zombie or laid out dead. We sat there in silence
listening to the wind blow through chimes on the porch and eventually Felicity
came out holding the note.

Benji ran over to her and threw his arms around her. She
started crying again but she didn't seem as upset as I expected her to be.
Perhaps she was just too exhausted to take it all in. She looked at me and held
up the note.

“Two weeks ago,” she said. “They took sleeping pills and
died peacefully holding hands.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck and
avoiding eye contact.

“You know the crazy thing is that I had to find them today
after I found Jackson this morning,” she said. “What kind of messed up karma is
that?”

“It's totally unfair,” I agreed with her, kicking the end of
the sofa absentmindedly with my sneaker.

“And how did they know I would come back here?” She wiped
fresh tears from her eyes. “The letter is addressed to me. All it says is how
much they loved me and how proud of me they are and not to give up hope no
matter what. Why should I keep fighting when everyone I love is dead?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe they left if for you because
you were all they had left?”

“Yeah,” she said, “and now I'm on my own.”

“You've got me,” Benji said wrapping his arms back around
her waist. He began to cry. “My family died too. I had to watch them die, even
my little sister. It was the worst thing I've ever seen. Every night when I go
to bed I can still see her face looking at me, begging for help, right before
they began biting her all over.”

“I'm so sorry,” Felicity said, stroking his hair and looking
at me. I held my hands up as if to say I didn't know where this was coming
from. The truth was, Benji had never shared that much with me. Sure he told me
about what happened with his family, but he was reserved and quiet. Most of the
time he just kept to himself. It wasn't until that moment that I realized how
bad he'd been hurting inside.

“My first few weeks on the base were the hardest,” he said.
“But then Xander began to look out for me. He had my back when the other kids
teased me or stole from me or tried to beat me up. He's taken care of me, made
sure I don't get eaten or left behind or kidnapped by neo Nazi's.”

“Neo Nazi's?” Felicity threw me a puzzled look.

“It's a long story,” I said.

“We're family now,” Benji said, letting go of her and wiping
his face. “We're all we got left now. I know that won't bring back your
parents, but it's better than nothing.”

Felicity leaned over and kissed him softly on the forehead.
The look on his face said it all. I thought for a minute he was going to pass
out right there.

“Thank you,” she said, “little brother.”

“What do you want to do?” I asked. “I'd be more than happy
to help you bury them in the soft grass of the front yard if you like.”

“I think that would be nice,” she said. “They deserve a
proper burial.”

Benji and I fetched some shovels from a tool shed out near
the garage and set to work while Felicity began to poke around the house for
things to take with us. She made fresh lemonade to cool us down from ripe
lemons she picked on a tree in the yard and some sugar she found in the
kitchen. There was no ice so we drank it warm but it still tasted amazing.
Luckily the ground was moist and it took us less than an hour to dig one big
hole for her parents to share. Benji was too squeamish to help move the bodies
so he went with Felicity to pick wild flowers to line the bottom of the grave.
When they had filled all the empty spaces up with colorful poppy flowers,
honeysuckle, and larkspur, I set about the task of moving the bodies. Her mom
was light and stiff as a board, which made her easy to move, but her stepfather
was already beginning to decay. I had to hold my breath to avoid the putrid
smell of decomposition coming off of him. Twice I lost my hold and nearly
dropped him, but recovered in time. I set them both on the grass then slowly
and carefully pulled them into the grave with me to make sure I didn't further
disturb their corpses. When they were laid out side by side as they had been in
their bedroom, I joined their hands together and closed their eyes.

Benji made the sign of the cross over himself as I climbed
out.

“Thank you,” Felicity said. “Before you bury them I'd like
to say a few words. She proceeded to pay tribute to her mother in loving
detail, thanking her for all she had done for her and her sister. Then she
lavished praise on her stepfather for his love and support, for taking care of
her when she was young, and for caring for her mother and being a faithful
companion to the end. When she was done we were all crying.

“You can bury them now,” she said. Benji and I took up
shovels and gently filled the hole back up with dirt. When we were done, she
fixed a white crucifix to the top of the grave with their names written on it
that she'd made while we were digging the grave.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” I asked. I wasn't sure
that it was safe for us. In fact I was fairly certain it wasn't, but I would
stand watch all night if I had to in order for her to have one last night with
her mom in her childhood home.

“No,” she said wiping away fresh tears.

“Are you sure?” I was doing my best to be supportive. “We
can take turns making sure it's safe tonight.”

“I've already grabbed a few things that remind me of her,”
she said. “I think it would be worse for me to stay. It's hard just being here
now. I can't imagine waking up and not having her here.”

“We'll go then,” I said, and she shook her head and cried
again.

“I'm coming to the base with you,” she confided.

“Yes.”

“We're sticking together,” she said. “Like a family.”

“You know it,” I answered back. “We're gonna need gas though
to make it back.”

“No problem,” she said. “I know just the place to get it.”

Felicity grabbed the bag of stuff she'd gathered from the
house and got back in the Lexus. She turned and handed a small teddy bear to
Benji.