Momentarily startled, he grunted then wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing me wholeheartedly. My mind got giddy and blank feeling his stubble rubbing against my chin and his fingers gently kneading my lower back. He pulled away and looked down at me with an impish grin. “Ok, I believe you.” With a final wink, he reached down and grabbed his bag and started towards the shop.
Standing still, I waited a second for my blood to cool. My skin was like memory foam, replaying the feel of his hands and lips over and over until I was sure I’d never forget. It was that moment, that tiny, insignificant moment of watching him walking away from me that I knew. I knew without a doubt, without a trace of uncertainty that I was completely in love with him. I wanted to enjoy that feeling. I wanted to wrap myself up in it and wear it like a jacket for the rest of my life. It was joy and light and I wanted so desperately to be happy about it. But I also knew with unwavering certainty that for as much as I was in love with Jack, I was going to lose him. And it would fucking shatter me.
I picked up my bag and followed the others into the shop. There was a tense moment when they all stopped talking and stared at me. I could still see the fear and uncertainty in their eyes echoing back at me, hell, I wasn’t even certain about myself anymore.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked casually as I started to check the guns on my holster and avoided their eyes.
I looked up when no one answered to see Chloe with her arms folded across her chest, obviously not agreeing with the current suggestions. She gave Jack another long look before swirling around in a huff and stalking away. I wanted to ask what her deal was as Ty walked off towards her.
“Uh, Angie…” Jack started hesitantly as he stroked his goatee. I waited for him to continue, but he just stood there, rubbing his chin. Finally he cleared his throat and stood a little straighter, letting out a huge sigh. “Chloe thinks we should scrap the coast and head to D.C. and we don’t disagree with her. At least, not exactly.” His eyes were pleading with me and it took all of me to not punch his beautiful face.
I could feel my pulse speeding up and hearing the trepidation of his didn’t help matters. They wanted to leave me? Fine, I would just leave them first. Hiking my bag higher on my shoulder, I started towards the window we had come in through.
“Fine,” My voice was sharp and cold sounding, even to me. “You guys do what you want, but I
will
get to an island and have some fucking peace.”
Jack started towards me and tried to put his hand on my shoulder but I just shrugged it off. “You’ve got it all wrong,” He started, eyes still pleading.
I spun and stalked closer, the betrayal of being left on my own stinging so deep I could hardly breathe. “Oh really? ‘Cuz it sounds an awful lot like you guys want to go your own way and who could blame you? Even
I
don’t know what I am anymore!”
“Damnit, Angie, shut up for five seconds and hear us out!” Chloe’s outburst got my attention and I started to focus my anger on her, but she started babbling before I had a chance. “If what Ian was doing was government sanctioned, then where else but the capital would they have answers for what’s happening to you? Fuck, for all we know that serum caused you to survive being bit, which means there could be a
cure
!”
Well, fuck
. I stopped mid-huff and let her words sink in. Could I really be harboring the cure? If I was, I was pretty sure I was the only one who was experimented on who made it out alive which meant I might be the only shot the human race had at real survival.
Ugh
. I didn’t ask for this. I just wanted to go off by myself and learn to make rum out of coconuts and spend my days lounging on a beach. Preferably with a shirtless Jack Jones strumming a guitar next to me. I didn’t want to be our only hope; that was just too much to lay on a person.
I stared at the faces staring back at me. Ty and Chloe looked so hopeful I wanted to cry. I was a complete asshole for only thinking of myself while standing right in front of 2 amazing and brilliant kids who didn’t deserve this anymore than I did. Looking over at Jack pounded the final nail in my coffin. He was supposed to be the rich, self-serving jerk who only cared about fast cars and beautiful women which was so far off the truth it was laughable. My head ping-ponged between those faces a few more times before resting on Roscoe. The sight of his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he stared at me did it. Groaning, I let myself fall to the ground and to my back in an unceremonious heap; I did my best thinking laying down because then I didn’t have gravity to distract me. I focused on my breathing, the heart beats in the room and the feel of the cold concrete through my thin shirt.
“Wow. That was Oscar-worthy,” Jack started with a slow clap.
“Shut up and decide what we’re doing. I’ll get up when you guys have a solution least likely to get us all killed.”
Still chuckling, my eyes followed Jack as he came and lay down behind me, pausing to lift my head and rest it on his stomach before lying back down. Before I could ask what he was doing, Chloe came over and laid down next to me, putting her head on my stomach, with Ty bringing up the end and his head on Chloe’s stomach. We just lay there quietly, like the game we used to play as kids where you all lay down with heads on bellies, laughing as our heads bounced with the other person’s laughter until someone threatened to pee and stood up.
Roscoe walked over, snuffed Ty’s shirt, then lay down with his head on Ty’s stomach and watched us all with his giant dog eyes. That did it; we all started to laugh so hard my healing ribs screamed in protest, which made Chloe’s head bounce harder, hence more laughing.
It felt so good to just laugh. We laughed so long I wasn’t even sure why we were laughing anymore, just that there was no turning back. I laughed so hard my voice wasn’t even coming out anymore, just a high-pitched wheeze as my head continued to bounce and tears rolled down my cheeks.
My laughter was cut off abruptly as I thought about how many miles it was between us and D.C. “How far is it?” I asked as the giggles quieted down in the others.
“About 16 hundred miles, give or take. We’d have to go through roughly 7 states, mostly back country, but there’s several heavily populated areas on the way.” Ty’s voice echoed quietly through the shop and I raised my head to look at him. His eyes met mine and he shrugged. “Chloe and I were up late talking about it.”
“How on earth would we get there? If you haven’t forgotten, cannibalism has become the world’s new favorite pastime and I really doubt the airport is still selling tickets.”
Our line was disrupted as Ty shot up excitedly. “That’s the plan, we’ll fly!” I was about to ask him if he’d eaten a big bowl of drugs for breakfast before he interrupted my skepticism. “I can fly, all we need is to find a little plane, gas it up and we’re off.”
“You can fly? Seriously? How many hours have you logged?” Jack asked as he lifted my head so he could sit up.
“Well…” Ty trailed off looking away.
“He’s logged over 50 hours which is plenty for a small plane,” Chloe finished for him defensively.
I didn’t know dick about how many hours were required to become a pilot, but it sounded like a lot. I looked up at Jack from his lap to find him rubbing his beard in thought again. At least it was an improvement from rubbing the back of his neck; it meant he wasn’t currently irritated at me.
My attention was pulled from Jack to watch Ty stand up and start pacing excitedly. “The airport is about 8 miles north of here; a straight shot up 37. We can stay on the overpass and get there by nightfall.”
Chloe was nodding her head in agreement as she stared at Jack and me, wide-eyed excitement written all over her face. I wanted to share their enthusiasm, but the whole thing felt like a suicide mission. “Even if we make it to the airport, there’s gonna be a lot of dead there.” I said slowly.
I felt Jack grunt in agreement. “True, but considering how big the airstrips are at an international airport, we’d have more open space to maneuver.”
Ugh. Ok. Well, I guess I was going to die after all while on a kamikaze mission to save the human race. The good news was if there was a heaven after all, surely this would win me points.
I stood up and brushed the dirt off my pants. Looking at the group, “Well, what are we waiting for? Daylight’s burning.”
The others stood and straightened themselves up and we all shared a look before heading to the window. There was fear behind the excitement in the kids’ eyes, and I could feel their pulses racing which only solidified my decision. They deserved a chance and if I could give it to them, I would.
No one spoke as we one by one climbed up and out the window into the hazy April sunshine. Looking around, it was eerily quiet, which never sat well with me. We were in the heart of the city and it seemed there should be more commotion. Although we would have to pass the Dome on our way to the airport, which was where the zombies had been heading after it blew up, so I guess we’d end up in a shit storm one way or the other.
Our footsteps made a light, crunching sound on the gravel as we crept out from the safety of the shop we’d just left and started back towards the overpass. Looking at the abandoned buildings and cars around us, I became overwhelmed by the silence. You never realize how noisy the world is until it stops. There was no traffic, no people, no car horns, no music, not even birds chirping. Filled with a sense of foreboding, I pulled my machete from the holster on my thigh and a pistol from my waist.
The others were in front of me with Jack leading up the pack. I stayed to the back of the group mostly because there was no way anything could sneak up on me now, not with my super hearing and all; seemed odd that I had super powers and had to save the world, but if every comic book ever was anything to go by, it made sense. What they didn’t know and what I would never tell them is that I knew with every fiber of my being that I would fail, but I needed them to have hope that we’d all make it out alive. There was no way I could keep going on my own steam alone; I needed their faith in me which was selfish, but turning into a monster hadn’t changed who I was in my core, it had only altered my perception a bit. I still wanted that beach and I still wanted peace and quiet, but I had to let them see there was no hope on their own without me crushing their dreams.
I was feeling a bit of Déjà Vu as we continued to retrace our steps. The cars totaled and abandoned and smeared with blood were exactly the same as they’d been the day before, only now the whole scene felt more macabre. Looking over the sides of the road, no signs of life could be seen through the smoke of the dying fires, yet I could hear the moans of an alarming amount of dead not far ahead; exactly where the Dome was.
Chloe’s giggle wafted back to me as we climbed over vehicles and my stomach started to growl again. We’d only been walking an hour but the sheer amount of obstacles prevented us from getting very far very fast. I looked down and noticed that ashes had coated the pavement and my footprints were extremely visible. Anyone following us would know exactly where we were heading and there wasn’t anything I could do to prevent it. Of course, they might confuse our prints with those of the dead, but anyone with half a brain would see that ours had purpose and weren’t just bodies shambling in any direction.
It wasn’t long before we reached the Hummer. I looked over at the smoke still rising from the small fires in the Dome and felt green. Stopping, I just stood there and stared. Ty and Chloe had run ahead to the Hummer to scrounge for anything we may have forgotten, but I just stood and stared. It was just a giant pile of grey rubble staring back at me yet I couldn’t look away. Bile rose and I ran to the side rail and threw the contents of my belly over the side. Tears rolled down my face and with every heave my gaze could not be pulled from that place. It was the realization and culmination of every fear I’d ever had and I wanted it to blow up all over again. I wanted to watch the people who’d hurt me die all over again.
Feeling my hair being pulled off my neck and a cold, wet hand on the back of my neck brought me back to reality. I turned around and wasn’t surprised to see Jack standing behind me. He didn’t say a word, just pulled me into his arms and held me as I cried so hard I thought something inside might break. Maybe it already had.
Hearing footsteps, more arms found their way around me. I just stood there and cried until nothing more than dry, silent, heaving sobs came out as Jack, Ty and Chloe stood silently, arms wrapped tight enough around me that my legs could give out and I would be held upright.
“If I could bring them back just to kill them all over again, I would.” I heard Ty finally say. His words were tight and the barely contained anger behind them was palpable. I knew without a doubt the kids understood now what had happened to me, which only made it hurt worse. Fuck, it could have been
Chloe
. In that moment, I was glad it had been me. No one ever deserved to go through what I had, but at least I was used to abuse.
I took a deep breath and pulled out of the group hug. “I’m ok, really. Let’s keep going.” Walking over to the Hummer, I gazed longingly at my old friend as I swept the inside for anything of import we might have missed. “Oh shit!” I ran over to the passenger side and swung the door open, leaning in and opening the glove box. The giant bag of weed minus what Jack had smuggled into the Dome was just where I’d left it and I couldn’t keep the shit eating grin off my face as I shoved it into my bag.