100 Days in Deadland (13 page)

It’s the living with yourself afterward that’s tough.

The Fourth Circle of Hell

Exhaustion claimed me, and I sank deeper into Clutch’s safe arms.

Saying nothing, he carried me into the house and rather than bringing me to the sofa where I’d slept since Jase came to live here, he carried me upstairs.

“Cash! We were so freaking worried!” Jase yelled out through the open door of his bedroom.

Without pausing at Jase’s room, Clutch carried me straight into his bedroom. I barely stayed awake while he helped me out of my sweat- and dust-drenched layers, leaving me in only my sports bra and underwear.

He left, returning moments later with wet washcloths. He ran the cloths gently over my skin, likely checking me for bites and injuries more than cleaning me, but I didn’t care. His touch felt good.

Finished, he helped me crawl under the blankets of his king-sized bed, and tucked them around me. I groaned at the protective comfort of the blankets and pulled them tighter to me. “So good to be home.”

Clutch grunted before disappearing again, and the next thing I knew he was nudging me awake. I grumbled as he lifted my head up and held a glass of water to my lips. My hands wrapped around his fingers on the glass while I clumsily slurped at the contents. The cool water drenched the dust and debris lodged in my raw throat and I coughed. Once I could breathe again, I gulped down the rest. He wiped water from my chin before he lowered my head back to the pillow and stepped away.

At the door he paused. “I never should’ve left you behind,” he said, his voice a rough whisper.

I shook my head. “I made you go.”

“No. You didn’t.” Then he walked away, closing the door behind him, leaving behind only silence.

“Clutch,” I called out with a cough, but he never returned. At first I fought to stay awake so I could talk some sense into him, but all too quickly I surrendered to a dreamless sleep.

I slept through most of the next day, though I remember Clutch checking on me several times. Each time, his calloused hand brushed across my forehead and he made me drink water before letting me doze off again. One time, he wouldn’t leave until I’d eaten a protein bar. I grumbled, he grumbled, and I ate it. Then I fell back asleep.

Nightmares of children that were no longer children yanked me back to consciousness. Luckily, instead of the moans of zeds, I came awake to the sound of stacking plates and the smell of warm food.

Every muscle in my body griped when I climbed out of bed. After a full-body stretch, I forced myself through fifty sit-ups and fifty push-ups to get my blood pumping. My body hated me for it, but I pushed through it. Finished, I headed across the hall to the bedroom I’d given up to Jase when he moved in, and grabbed fresh clothes from a drawer I’d kept in the dresser.

Without power, we had no water pressure for a shower the three of us shared. I sighed in relief when I found four buckets of clean water waiting next to the tub. I poured them into the tub, stripped, and settled into the biting cold water, trying to scrub away the memories from yesterday, with little success.

Not having warm water tended to speed up the cleaning process. Shivering, I jogged down the steps to find Clutch cooking dinner on the tabletop propane grill we’d moved into the kitchen after the power went out. He gave me a small nod before turning his attention back to the food. I grabbed a spoon and reached into the pot, but he grabbed my wrist. “
Nuh-uh. You have to wait like the rest of us.”

I pouted and then smirked. “Hurry up. I’m starving,” I ordered and headed into the living room, the only light from a small lantern.

“Hey, Cash,” Jase called from the sofa.

I nodded toward his left foot propped up on a chair, a thick wrapping around his ankle. “How’s the leg?”

He rubbed his ankle. “It’s just a sprain. Clutch says the swelling will be down enough in another day or two that I can start putting some weight on it again.” He looked up. “Wow, you slept for like twenty-four hours straight.”

“She needed it,” Clutch said before handing Jase and me each a bowl.

I grabbed a seat next to Jase and dug into tonight’s specialty—a steaming mix of mystery meat, beans, and rice.

Clutch returned with his own bowl and a warm beer.

“So tell me about the school. Were there more zeds inside?” Jase asked.

I paused before taking a bite. “Yeah.”

“What was it like? I bet it was scary,” he continued.

I kept chewing. The memories were bad enough for me. No one else needed to have them haunting their conscience.

Clutch gave me a knowing look but said nothing. He finished his dinner and beer before I was even halfway through mine. He came to his feet. “I should get back outside.”

I looked up. “Have you been covering both Jase’s and my shifts?”

He didn’t reply, but the dark circles under his eyes told me enough. He looked beat, and I’d bet he hadn’t slept once in the past two days.

“I’ll cover all of tonight,” I said. “You’re on bed rest, effective immediately.”

He raised a brow. “You’re ordering me around now?”

I smiled. Then nodded.

A smirk tugged at his lips before he relented. “Wake me when you need a break. Don’t overdo it because, at sunrise, we need to start hitting the farms around here hard and fast. A vehicle drove by slow yesterday, which I’d bet are looters scanning this area.”

“Shit,” I muttered. While I’d expected looters to sniff around this area sometime, I’d also hoped that they’d take their own sweet time before doing so. There were literally hundreds of miles of roads in the area. Why couldn’t they leave our four-mile stretch alone?

“We need everything we can get and fast,” Clutch added. “And, I’m out of beer and almost out of whiskey.”

I grimaced. “I can’t believe you’d drink warm beer.”

“Warm beer is better than no beer.”

“Point taken.” I shooed him away. “Now go. Hit the sack. You’re even grumpier when you’re tired.”

He grunted and cracked his neck. “Be careful out there. I saw a group of zeds pass through the field yesterday. We’ve been lucky they’ve mostly avoided the woods so far.”

“I wonder why
they haven’t hit the woods more,” I said. After all, if I was a predator, they’d be a prime spot.

“I’m thinking they prefer taking easier routes since they can’t get around as easily as us,” Clutch replied before disappearing up the stairs.

So far, most zeds we’d seen had stuck to open flatlands like roads, yards, and fields. But a few had stumbled through the woods already, so they certainly didn’t have an allergy to shrubbery.

I would’ve eaten faster, but my stomach was cramping from going nearly two days on only a protein bar, and I had to pace myself. At least I was wide awake. A near-coma was exactly what my body had needed. My muscles were amped. I wished it was morning already so that we could get started on looting the nearby farms. We’d been forced to put it off while we fortified the farm against looters. But we
needed
food and supplies. Even though winter was at least eight months away, we needed to hoard anything we could to prepare.

Running into zeds or looters was a chance we had to take.

“You were lucky you got back to the farm when you did,” Jase mumbled with a mouth full of food. “Clutch was packing up to head back into town for you. I wanted to come, but he said I had to stay back and hold down the fort.”

“He was an idiot,” I said. When I’d seen Clutch loading weapons into the truck, I’d already figured he wasn’t heading out for another solo looting run. Going anywhere after dark was a suicide run, especially to a particular elementary school. Clutch could’ve gotten himself killed for the infinitesimal chance that I was still alive. It was a fucking miracle I’d gotten back to the house when I did. If he’d gone into town to look for me…if he hadn’t returned…

With a shiver, I came to my feet and headed into the kitchen to clean up, all the time praying that those thoughts would never become reality.

After I had my weapons strapped on, I stopped by the living room. “You need help getting upstairs?” I asked.

Jase looked up from the book he’d been reading and shook his head. “Nah. I’ll hang down here for a bit. I’m tired of being in bed.” He thumped the book down. “I hate being cooped up like this.”

“You’ll be back on your feet before you know it.” I gave him a quick wave and then headed outside. The sun had set, and I walked the perimeter around the house first. I’d always hated night-watch. Now, I had a whole new perspective. Even in the dark where zeds could lurk, I found the open space and fresh air a vast improvement over the school’s cramped air ducts.

The walk down the long lane, with trees lining both sides, seemed easier tonight. Sure, a zed could shuffle out from the darkness at any moment, but the idea didn’t terrify me as much as it had less than two days ago.

There was hardly a breeze, with every sound lingering in the air. My natural warning system of crickets chirping and frogs croaking was in full effect tonight. Insects and animals tended to go silent when zeds were around.

At the end of the lane, the gate stood solidly fastened to the barbed wire and chain link fence doubled up on both sides. I double-checked the locks. It was the only opening in the fence lining Clutch’s property along the roadside. We’d reinforced the old fence with reams of chain link we’d taken from Jase’s farm, but we needed much more to make it strong enough to hold back zeds and to build a secondary fence around the house.

A single human could climb easily over the fence or come through the woods, but with the deep ditches for Iowa winters, vehicles could enter the farm only through the gate. And, except for a couple trails, the woods surrounding the house served as a barrier against vehicles on three sides.

But the woods wouldn’t hold back zeds, not for long. Clutch owned a few hundred acres and with a fence only along the roadside, the other three sides were wide-open fields. If the zeds passed through in large groups, we’d have some serious problems on our hands.

I leaned on the metal gate, staring out at the star-studded sky. The stars were so much brighter here than in Des Moines…or at least when too many city lights clouded the nights. I guess the stars would shine just as brightly everywhere now.

A clear night and smooth air: it would’ve been a perfect night for a flight. God, I missed watching the sun set from the air.

Even more, I missed my parents. They lived in a residential area not far from downtown. Mom had diabetes and needed daily insulin shots. If they were still in town, they’d be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of zeds by now. The first week, I mentioned the idea of heading into Des Moines for them, but Clutch had said it was too dangerous. After seeing Fox Hills, a town point five percent the size of the Des Moines area filled with zeds, I couldn’t argue his logic.

My only regret was that I’d never even gotten the chance to say good-bye.

A rhythmic scraping sound off to my left drew my attention. Careful to avoid Clutch’s booby traps, I made my way down the fence line until the zed came into sight. A green John Deere hat hung crookedly on its head. It had been an older man, with short white hair peeking out from under the hat. Its facial features were impossible to make out since decay had already started to set in. It dragged one leg, its boot grating the gravel with each step in a monotonous rhythm.

Step.

Scrape.

Step.

Scrape.

The signature sound of a zed.

Once I made sure it didn’t have any friends, I stepped up to the fence. “Hey,
fucktard.”

The zed lifted
its head, and sniffed in my direction. Even with yellowish pupils, it seemed to see fine because it moaned and shuffled its way straight toward me, stumbling while walking down the ditch. When it finally regained its footing and dragged itself up to the fence, I pulled out my machete.

When it reached for me, I swung. Its head lobbed off and bounced on the ground. Its fingers had tangled in the fence, and I kicked the body, sending it backward into the ditch. Its hat had fallen off and landed near the head.

I leaned over the fence and watched the head for a good ten minutes. The fucking thing just kept watching me, moving its mouth. I narrowed my eyes but couldn’t see any kind of humanity left in its gaze. Its eyes were truly devoid of
anything.

After scanning the area one more time, I climbed over the fence, looked at the head, and then brought the heel of my foot down. Its front teeth shattered. I stomped again and again until the skull crushed inward and the mouth finally stilled.

I picked up the hat and tossed it onto the body. The smell would be worse tomorrow, when I could safely move the zed’s body farther away and cover it with dirt since we’d decided to quit burning the zeds we took down. It was too much work and the smoke could be seen and smelled from too far away.

The crickets resumed their chirping. The stars still shone brightly, happy in their places so far away from a world consumed by death. And so I climbed back over the fence and continued my patrol.

I rehydrated every hour. At four a.m., I headed into the house to check on the guys. Jase was sleeping soundly on the couch, a paperback copy of the
SAS Survival Handbook
sprawled open across his chest. I gently tugged it from under his hand, dog-eared the page, and set it on the floor. I tiptoed up the stairs and paused outside Clutch’s room. Muffled grunts came from the other side. Every night was the same. A couple hours after he fell asleep, the nightmares would come.