I feel Mikey following me down the hall,
his eyes boring holes into my back, but he doesn’t say anything else. Maybe he realizes that he’s fighting a losing battle; maybe he’s going to spring a trap on me and hide me away somewhere so I can’t go. I doubt it. And I know I should be grateful that he gives a shit, but I’m not. It’s just irritating. I push open the door and don’t bother to hold it open for him. In fact, as I head outside and the rain lashes down on me, I’m pretty sure I hear a
thump
and a muttered “fuck.” I’m so pissed off that I can’t even afford a snigger at his expense. Well, maybe I give a small one.
The rain drenches me through, and by the time I reach the rec
center I’m about ready to go back home before I catch the flu, but then Nova is there all geared up to the teeth and still smiling despite the crappy weather, so I suck it up and pretend it doesn’t bother me.
“Lock and load, bitches!”
she hollers from the top of a large military truck.
“No
va, get the fuck in here,” Rachel yells from the doorway of the rec center.
I look up at her as I p
ass. The truck is huge, with dual tires on either end of the twin rear axles; it looks like that thing could drive just about anywhere. It’s about twenty feet long and Nova seems to be having the time of her life trying to tie down the green canvas that covers the entirety of the back. No, seriously, she’s grinning from ear to ear.
I
laugh as I run to the door. Rachel opens it wider for me and I slip past her and mutter a “thanks.” Inside, Michael is one, weirdly topless and showing off a colorful array of tattoo designs across every inch of bare skin that I can see, and two, going through a weapons check of some sort. I head to him to find out what he needs from me, squeezing out my sopping wet hair as I walk.
“Nina reporting for duty!” I salute
sarcastically.
“I want you to drive. Can you do
that?” he snaps without looking up.
“Well, do I at least get a
gun?” I mutter, feeling kinda fucking stupid now. And shy, since he’s semi-naked.
“No, you don
’t need one. You just need to drive.” Again he doesn’t bother to look up and I huff out my annoyance.
I
’m about ready to rip him a new asshole when Nova comes in with Rachel by her side. She’s still grinning from ear to ear, a big-assed gun in her hand, and her long, red, wet ponytail dangling halfway down her back.
“I fucking love the rain
.” Nova twirls in a circle, sending raindrops flying around her. “It makes me feel so free!” She laughs.
“Nova, did you get your fucking gun wet again?” Michael storms over from his mass collection of weapons and snatches the gun
from her hand.
“It
’s just a little of God’s tears, darlin’,” she cackles and then snatches some smokes from Rachel’s pocket. “Thanks for watching my babies.” She lights one up and exhales, and I have a sense of déjà vu from twenty minutes earlier.
Rach
el rolls her eyes and heads over to a long table. “Nina, come with me so I can show you the route,” she calls back over her shoulder.
I wander over, leaving Michael and Nova bitching at each other. Well, Michael bitching at Nova
, anyway. She seems completely unfazed by the entire thing, a big shit-eating grin on her face while he lectures her. I can’t help but smile at her nonchalance.
Rach
el spreads a map across a long table and grabs a thick black marker. She circles where we are, and then much further out, she makes another circle. She grabs some fancy piece of plastic and slaps it on the map before drawing circles and
X
s and lines and such. I’m getting a headache just from watching her, but after a minute she pulls everything away and looks up to me.
“So this is where we are, and this is where we
’re heading.” She points out both places and looks at me as I nod. “The places with red
X
s on them are places we’ve encountered big trouble. The places with black
X
s on them are or were safe zones—the last time we were there, anyway.”
I nod again
and then frown. “Wait—big trouble? Isn’t everywhere kinda big trouble, or do you have a specific way to term big trouble? I mean on a scale of one to ten, where does big trouble lie? Because I’ve been in big trouble before and I’d class those as tens, but is your ten as big as mine?”
What can I say? I talk a lot when I’m nervous.
“Zee talked about peace-hating crackheads or something—are they the big trouble, or are we talking about something else?”
Nova
struts over to us and slaps me on the back. “What the fuck are you talking about?” She grins. “Big trouble is mass hordes of zombies, road collisions that we couldn’t clear because they were so damn big. Big trouble is groups of assholes we got to meet on these lovely excursions. All of those things are big trouble, and they’re all on the scale of ten.” She smiles at me again. “But it’ll be fun, you’ll see.” She nods happily and then pauses, lost in thought before she looks me in the eye seriously. “Oh, piss break before we leave.” She strides off without saying anything else, leaving me and Rachel to stare at one another.
Rach
el grins. “Love that girl.”
“Are you two…you know…together?
Like Max and Constance?”
“No,
she’s…” Rachel chuckles and then pauses, a weird look crossing her face before she continues. “She’s like a sister to me is all. She makes everything seem…like it’s worth all the heartache, I guess. She makes it all bearable.” Her eyes meet mine, and I notice again the color difference of her eyes. In those eyes I also see her pain, and I know that she’s seen way more than one woman should have to see. I wonder if that’s what people see when they look into my eyes.
“Aah, okay. Sorry, I shouldn
’t have assumed.” I roll my eyes and smile.
Rach
el laughs again. “It’s fine. If I dug chicks, I’m sure she would be at the top of my list.”
We both laugh
, but stop when Michael comes over, a scowl planted firmly on his face. He looks us both over and readies himself to say something, but must think better of it as he huffs and storms away without a word.
“So, when do we leave?” I ask, looking at the map again.
“Twenty minutes or so. Nova’s finished refitting the canvas over the truck. We haven’t taken this one out in a couple of months, but the roads are a mess out there. The snow is pretty thick in places and,” she shakes her head, “you’ll see soon enough. It’s nothing to worry about, though—not while we’re up high in Betty.”
“Betty?” I quirk an eyebrow.
“That’s what Nova called the truck. Said she had a big ass like her friend Betty.”
We both laugh, receiving filthy looks from Michael for the trouble, but I
’ve already decided that he’s an asshole and I’m going to make it my mission to piss him off several times a day on this trip, or at least try to make him smile—the latter being more of a challenge, of course. I’m sure underneath his gruff exterior there’s a warm, cuddly teddy bear dying to get out. I’m warming to Rachel, despite the fact that she nearly killed me, though I can’t say we’ll ever be good friends. And there it is again. That fucking cursed word: friends.
A shiver
runs down my spine, like someone walked over my grave—or my new friends’ graves. God, I hope not. I shake off my morbidity, excited and nervous to be leaving the base.
The truc
k tumbles along at a slow speed. I could drive quicker, but this thing is bigger than anything I’ve driven before, and while I’m learning to handle it, I don’t want to risk anything. Plus I’m still trying to flex out my shoulder, testing its strength. It’s been a month or so since I was shot; the wound itself actually wasn’t really the problem, but the amount of blood loss I suffered on the way back to base. A gunshot wound is a gunshot wound. I’ll grin and bear it like a trooper, of course. Rachel is in the seat next to me, while Michael is in the back with Nova. Rachel doesn’t talk much, and that’s fine, really. I need to concentrate on the road and the vehicle, and the fact that it’s still raining hard and I can’t see jack shit.
“Damn it,” I curse as I roll the truck over something.
Rachel continues to look out the window, her legs stretched out in front of her with her feet resting on the dashboard. She barely flinches at the sound of something crunching under the tire or my cursing. I’m hoping that’s a positive sign that I’m not doing too bad, but I’m pretty sure Michael is going bat-shit crazy in the back right about now. Unsurprisingly, that puts a smile on my face.
Mikey had come to see me off;
he’d packed an overnight bag and brought me his samurai sword. Lucky for me, he’s been giving me lessons on how to handle such a deadly knife. It’s nothing like using a machete, where you just aim and hack; it’s more graceful and precise, and a shitload deadlier in some ways. I have to admire the fact that he can use one of these with the finesse of an old samurai master—or at least be jealous as hell that he can use it better than me. More than likely the latter option. I’m pretty good at learning new things—always have been. I guess I have one of those minds that sort of learns and remembers right away. It in no way makes me an expert at anything, but it means I know lots of weird little facts and have some great little skills. I still prefer my machete, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer when I tried to refuse his sword. I guess in some ways, he was trying to send a little piece of him with me for protection.
Emily didn
’t say goodbye to me, mainly because we didn’t tell her I was going. Okay, so that was the only reason she didn’t come to say goodbye. She’d only worry, and with any luck we’ll be back in two days, maybe three, and she’ll only know I’m missing for one of them. She’s been so busy working with Becky in the hospital that we’ve hardly seen each other recently. It’s a good and a bad thing, I guess.
Rach
el suddenly drops her heavy-booted feet down and grabs the map. She scours it for a minute before looking up at the road again. “Whatever happens, do not stop.” She thumps twice on the partition between the cab and the bed of the truck, and only seems satisfied when we hear a steady two-thump beat returned.
“What
’s going on?” I ask, my throat suddenly dry.
“Big trouble spot,” s
he says without missing a beat and points to the first red
X
on the map.
I swallow. “What kind of big trouble?”
“Zombie hordes have been seen around these parts every time we travel through here. Don’t know where the fuckers keep coming from. It’s like they’re breeding.” She shivers comically and sticks her tongue out with a grin.
I don
’t know whether to laugh or be amazed that she said all that in one go
and
cracked a fucking joke at the same time. I smirk and shake my head, keeping a more vigilant eye on the road. Sure enough, up ahead I see gray masses moving through the storm.
“Shit, is that what I think it is?”
Rachel makes an
uh huh
sound and rolls down her window, pushing her gun out of the gap. Freezing cold rain lashes in at her, but she aims and doesn’t wince or move in any way. Up ahead, deaders slowly move out of the tree line as if they have been waiting to hijack us. They begin moving toward us slowly, the moaning reaching over the sound of the wind and rain and this monster of a truck.
“Don
’t stop,” Rachel murmurs.
I snort
out a laugh. I have no fucking intention of stopping this truck for anything. I will happily run those fuckers down. Hell, I’ve wanted to do it for the past couple of years but never had the right vehicle to do it in. But now here I am sitting in Betty’s throne. I grin and accelerate. Rachel moves under the abrupt momentum though she quickly rights her position, I don’t bother to apologize as she begins to fire into the trees and I start to roll over the deaders. The feeling of bones crushing under my tires gets lost because of the heavy suspension of the truck as it bounces and thumps along. I grip the wheel tighter, my knuckles going white as I struggle to control it. The road is slippy with gore and sleet, and I’m not used to driving in these conditions. Jesus, before all this end-of-the-world crap, I wouldn’t have left the house until winter was over, never mind going out zombie slaying and scavenging for food and supplies.
Lucky me, I’m a changed fucking woman.
Shooting starts up
and I glance in my mirrors, watching as the road behind us closes up with starving deaders. Michael and Nova are not wasting ammo, though, and aren’t shooting all that much. Rachel seems to be doing most of that at the side of me. She slips fresh ammo into the bottom of her gun and continues to fire for another minute or so before pulling her gun back inside and closing up the window.
The truck seems especially quiet after all that commotion, an
d when I turn to say so to Rachel, I can’t help the laugh that explodes from me. Rachel is drenched through, her blonde hair sticking to her face, water dripping from her nose and chin. Her cheeks are bright red against the stark paleness of the rest of her face.
“Are you okay?” I say between laughs.
“Yeah, totally fine.” She chuckles and blows some of the sopping hair from her face.
I laugh even harder, wiping tears away as she shakes her head like a dog, spraying water
around the cab. She smirks and grabs a towel from her bag, wrapping it around her shoulders and pulling it over the top of her head. She scrubs her head to towel dry it and wipes down her face, and I turn up the heaters.
A couple minutes later she looks a little more like herself
and she finally decides to talk a little more than her usual yes and no answers.
“So, how long have you been at the base?” I ask, trying to sound casual. Christ
, look at me: I’m a real chatty Cathy these days. I sigh. I mean to do it inwardly, but it comes out.
“I haven
’t even answered you yet and here you are bored already,” Rachel says, still looking out the window.
“Sorry, it
’s not you. Well, it is, but, never mind.” I shrug. Silence encompasses the vehicle again, but after a couple of miles alone with my thoughts and only the ravaged landscape and driving rain for company, I realize that she didn’t reply to me.
I glance at her.
“Talk to me please.”
“I
’m not really one for talking,” she replies.
“I can see that.”
“Now Nova, that woman can talk. She’s funny, too, though I don’t think she realizes it. But she doesn’t give a shit, and says it how it is.”
I glance at her again and see her watching me.
“I can see why she likes you. You two are the same.”
“I
’m not chatty!” I laugh, only a little offended. “Sure, I have a tendency to express my opinion and do what I like, but that’s what survival does to you. I wasn’t always like this—well, maybe a little like this.”
Rach
el holds her hands up. “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I think it’s admirable. You don’t try and pacify anyone with bullshit—there’s nothing wrong with that. In some ways I’m the same. What you see is what you get.” A thoughtful look crosses her eyes, but before I can work it out, it’s gone again.
She
’s right and wrong: there’s been times that I should have most definitely kept my big trap shut, or at least softened the blow for the other person. Too many times I dive straight in and don’t think how my words could affect another person. It’s not a purposeful thing to be an asshole, it just sort of comes natural to me. I really should try to censor my mouth sometimes. I’m also not buying her
what you see is what you get
line. She definitely seems to have hidden depths that I don’t know about. She has those eyes—you know, the ones that are old before their time, that look like they have seen a thousand things they shouldn’t have.
“I
’ve only been at the base for six or seven months, I think,” Rachel says quietly. “Maybe a little less than that.”
I watch her from the corner of my eye and
guess that was hard for her to say. I decide to try out my whole ‘keeping my mouth shut’ theory. So we ride along for another mile in silence while I let her ponder her thoughts and I go crazy with wanting to ask questions but refusing to ask them. I realize that I must give at least a little bit of a shit about these people if I’m asking questions. Or maybe I’m moving forward. I never asked anything of JD or Josie; I never gave a shit—or maybe I was fooling myself into not wanting to give a shit. Either way, they’re gone now and I’ll never get to ask them those questions.
“
I was in a city before the base,” she mumbles. I nearly miss it I’m so wrapped up in my own inner monologue.
“A city?” I ask, before shutting my mouth and waiting for her again.
“Yeah, one of
those
cities.”
The way she says
those
makes me think that we may have more in common than we realized. It takes me a moment to decide on how to broach the subject. She seems pretty closed off about it all, as if just saying that one sentence was enough speaking about it to last her a lifetime. Me, I’m only just beginning.
“You were behind a walled city?” I say
with horror. Well, that explains a lot then—her quiet demeanor, her closed off personality.
She nods and makes her little
uh huh
noise again. The blood rushes to my ears, anxiety beginning to eat away at my gut. The last time I mentioned that I had been behind one of those walls, I got the pretty facial scarring that I carry around with me now. But she brought it to me first, and these people don’t seem like crazy fucking lunatics like the Forgotten were. Then again, I’m not the best judge of character.
“Before you start, it wasn
’t all roses and chocolates back there.” She holds up a hand to stop me from arguing with her. Clearly, she’s been through this before.
“
I know, I know…I was behind one too,” I whisper.
I don
’t mean to whisper, but it comes out that way all the same, as if my own throat is closing up and trying to stop me from getting the words out.
No, no, don’t do it, you crazy bitch. Do you really want the other side of your face cut to pieces?
my brain cries out loudly, but I’ve said it. Or at least I think I did. I turn to look at her. She’s still staring out the window blankly, her shoulders hunched.
“Did you hear me? I said I was behind one of them too.” I swallow the golf ball in my throat, feeling a mixture of both sadness and anger.
Anger at me for saying anything, and anger at her for
not
saying anything.
“I heard you.
I was just hoping that I imagined it is all.” She turns to look at me, her different colored eyes taking me in with uncertainty. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. They’re not nice places.”
She looks back
out the window and I’m close to slamming my brakes on and shaking the living shit out of her.
Not a nice place? What the fuck is that all about? A horror story, more like. Not a nice place does not cover it, not even close.
My vision blurs.
Am I crying? Hell no, stop those damn tears
. I’m furious, but I don’t know why.
“You need to slow down, Nina.”
Her words trickle into my thoughts and I look down at my speedometer and see that I’ve crept up to eighty miles an hour—a fucking stupid idea in weather like this, and certainly not in the emotional state I’m getting myself into. Jesus, what is wrong with me lately?
I ground
myself on thoughts of revenge, seeing my knife piercing Fallon’s gut from groin to throat. I feel the smile on my face before I even realize I’m doing it. Surprisingly, the image works and I feel my heartbeat slowing back down and I loosen my grip on the wheel and ease off the gas, so at least I’m not white-knuckle driving.
“Sorry. I never met anyone else other than Em that had been behind the walls before.” I bite down hard on my
lip before speaking again. “So how did you get out? I mean, why aren’t you still there?” I rub a clammy hand down my thigh quickly before putting it back on the wheel so as not to lose control of the truck. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I wait a beat before continuing. “Please tell me. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.”
Rach
el reaches out and places a hand on top of my leg. “It’s okay. I get it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious too. It’s just hard, I don’t really talk about it much. I can live with what happened to me, but I miss Sasha so much . . .” Her words trail off, and when I look, she’s wiping her eyes. “I miss her so much. She gave her life for me.”