This Would Be Paradise (Book 2) (21 page)

Roy stared out the backseat window as we drove back to Hargrove. The airport shuttle van that was supposed to be at the apartment was gone, so we were returning empty handed, but with heavier hearts. If we’d just gotten there a day ago, we could have possibly prevented this. Or as John had said, been caught in the middle of it.

John had said the recon would have to wait, since Roy’s exchange had no doubt put the mercenaries on edge. They’d be expecting an assault, so we would lay low for a while, then canvass the Gretna area once tensions settled down. Since Tim’s radio was a shortwave one, the mercenaries had to be within a few miles of where we’d had the exchange.

The sound of squealing tires reached my ears.

I whipped around to see what was happening just as a bullet flew through the back windshield and embedded itself in the center console, less than six inches from my face. I slunk back into my seat, the fact that I’d almost had my head blown off rendering me into shock.

“Bailey!” John screamed.

I looked up at him and he let out a huge breath when he saw I was okay, his face relaxing. He didn’t have much time to relax, though, as more bullets blasted through the back windshield. John veered off to the side, but we were trapped on the interstate with no turnoff in sight.

“Roy, you okay?” I shouted into the back.

“Yeah,” he croaked.

In the side mirror, I saw a giant, black SUV barreling toward us, a man leaning out the passenger window with a gun.

“Everyone keep your heads down!” John yelled. “Roy, pass that M4 up here.”

Gingerly, so he didn’t expose any body part to the shooter’s line of sight, Roy handed us the automatic weapon. I grabbed the barrel and pulled the rifle into my lap. More gunfire hit the car, bullets pinging off the back end.

John drove in a serpentine manner all over the highway.

“Go faster!” Roy barked.

“We go any faster and they’ll shoot our tires out. Then we’ll roll and get crushed to death,” John said back. “But I got an idea. Hold on.”

I barely had time to grab the seat belt and M4 before John turned the car 180 degrees so we were facing the SUV head-on.

“What the hell?” Roy screamed from the backseat.

Instead of answering, John floored gas pedal as if we were playing a high-stakes game of chicken. The SUV hit the brakes, their tires squealing and the back end sliding out. The guy who’d been shooting from the passenger window was thrown out of the SUV and landed with a splat on the pavement. He didn’t get up.

“Bailey, now!” John commanded.

I rolled down the window and, using the ledge to balance the gun, pointed the muzzle of the M4 at the side of the SUV. As we drove by, everything moved in slow motion. The guy at the wheel was fumbling with something, but I flipped the selector switch to “fire” and pulled the trigger. A spurt of bullets sailed through the SUV’s passenger-side window, hitting the driver and shattering the window behind him. His body jerked with every hit until I released the trigger.

I heard John’s voice through the ringing in my ears. “The backseat!”

The SUV’s backseat window was rolling down. I pointed the rifle at the back and let the rest of the bullets fly. The rifle clicked empty, the muzzle smoking like a lit cigarette.

I let out a shaky breath, not daring to move. The SUV’s side windows were shattered and holes marred the doors. No one was moving inside, but to be on the safe side, John drove a few meters away before stopping.

He looked straight out the front windshield, which had a few bullet holes in the center. “Anyone hit?”

“No,” Roy and I said at the same time.

John swallowed and said to me, “You did good.”

I nodded dumbly, my brain still working out what had just happened. John took the empty rifle from me and reached into the back for his bag. He popped out the magazine and reloaded it before cracking his car door open.

“I’m gonna make sure there ain’t no one left to come after us. You two stay here,” he said.

John took off for the SUV on foot. I twisted around in my seat and watched him approach the vehicle with caution. He was crouched low, moving fast toward the back window. He peered up and then went around to the side, the M4 aimed and ready. No one fired at John. They must all have been dead or injured.

John slipped around to the driver’s side, out of our sight line. I would have gone with him, except I felt like I’d lost the use of my legs. I was shaking from a mixture of adrenaline and fear. Drive-by shootings weren’t a common occurrence where I was from. Roy seemed as shaken up as I was, his shoulders trembling. He was staring out the fractured back window.

Neither of us said a word as we waited for John to return. He hustled back into our view, carrying an armful of items. He dropped them with a thud on the roof of the Mazda and leaned into the driver’s side.

“Three dead, includin’ the one on the road,” John said military-like.

I’d finally achieved that serial killer badge I’d been working toward. Had this been the old world, the police would have been hunting me. I remained slumped in my seat, unable to even muster the urge to laugh inappropriately.

“Found this ‘round the driver’s neck.” John held up a necklace, the pendant hanging at the bottom a familiar sight: the mercenaries’ symbol. “They must’ve decided to come lookin’ for us after our little conversation. I knew they were nearby.”

“How could they have been that close to the apartment all along?” Roy asked.

“Dunno, but we need to get off the main road in case they send backup.” John tossed his loot into the backseat, a few more guns among the items, and got back in.

We drove in silence until the engine began making a ticking sound that grew into a loud clunking.

“Come on, don’t do this,” John said to the car.

We’d just reached the bridge when the car gave one last sputter, like the last gasp of a dying man, and came to a rolling stop.

“Shit,” John said.

John got out and I followed, feeling like a toddler learning to walk for my first few steps. The adrenaline had dissipated, leaving behind stiff limbs. I got a good look at how much damage the car had taken; the body was littered with bullet holes. It was a miracle none of us had been hit.

Latent panic wriggled at the back of my brain as my mind digested the situation. We’d almost been killed. I’d stopped myself from freaking out during the firefight, and my body needed to release the shock, but now wasn’t the time either. Stupid Roy just had to antagonize the mercenaries into action. If he hadn’t done that, they probably never would have come after us. I glared at Roy.

Oblivious, Roy leaned down. “They punctured the gas tank. Must have been a slow leak.”

“Yeah, I figured when I noticed the gas meter goin’ down faster than before.”

“You couldn’t have said something?” I asked curtly.

“There was no need to frighten you guys, plus I was hopin’ what we had left would at least get us back to Hargrove,” John said as he took off his hat and rubbed his head.

“How are we supposed to get back?”

“I was thinkin’ ‘bout what Roy said earlier ‘bout hittin’ up a car lot. I’m sure we passed one just before the bridge on our way out.”

I looked across the bridge we’d cleared on our way to Gretna. No new infected had wandered in, but the city was crawling with them. I didn’t like our odds on foot.

“How close would you say that car lot was?” Roy asked.

“I’m hopin’ it takes us an hour, max, to get there on foot,” John said.

We only gathered the weapons we needed; we’d come back for the rest of our supplies once we had a ride. I shoved my Beretta into my belt and picked up my axe. Together, we started across the bridge. The sun bore down on us, and without the car’s AC blasting away, I was starting to feel it.

We ran into a few infected, but I easily dispatched them with my axe.

After forty-five minutes of brisk walking, a broken banner of colored flags came into view, waving in the sparse wind and signaling we’d reached the car lot. A pool of black plastic lay on the front lawn in front of the tiny office. It must have been one of those tacky blowup mascots that car dealerships often used.

“Keep an eye out,” John said as we entered the lot.

Dusty vehicles were neatly parked in all the spaces.

I pointed to a new Audi coupe. “I like this one.”

“Don’t matter. We take whatever one we can find the keys for,” John said.

Way to take the fun out of car shopping.

We reached the front door, which was unlocked. Once inside, we stalked from cubicle to cubicle, looking for infected.

“No one’s here,” I said.

“Start lookin’ through desk drawers for keys,” John said.

We got to work rummaging through people’s desks. I hoped to find the keys to that white Audi outside.

“Got something!” Roy yelled over the top of a cubicle.

We walked over to him, and he hit the unlock button. The chirp of a vehicle sounded from the parking lot.

“Please be the Audi,” I muttered.

Once outside, we followed the sound to the oldest car on the lot: an ancient Honda Civic. I laughed out loud.

John raised a brow. “What’s so funny?”

“I have a Civic just like this at home, except mine is in worse shape,” I said. “Of all the vehicles we could take, it had to be the dumpy one.”

I had the worst luck.

“Tough,” John said as opened the driver’s side door and tried the key, but the Honda’s engine didn’t take on the first two tries.

“Pop the hood,” Roy said.

Once the hood was up, Roy got to work fixing the Honda. John sat in the driver’s seat, turning the key in the ignition when Roy instructed him to. Sensing this would take a couple minutes, I wandered back over to my dream car: the white Audi. I wished I could have afforded it back in Canada, and now, ironically, when it was free for the taking, I couldn’t have it anyway. I peered in the side window, taking in the white-trimmed leather seats and console, practically drooling.

Something blocked the glint of the sun on the window, and I swung around to face an infected that had snuck up on me. Using the axe, I shoved it away. It fell back and landed hard on the next vehicle. The shrill car alarm went off.

“Shit,” I hissed. I pulled out the Beretta and shot the slumped infected.

“Bailey!” John’s voice boomed over the siren.

I ran to them, the Civic’s engine having finally turned over.

“You just had to set off the alarm, didn’t you?” Roy shook his head.

“Hey, it caught me off guard,” I said. And he was one to speak!

“We gotta leave!” John shut the driver’s door and we got in.

Even the interior looked like my old car, except for the lack of coffee stains.

“How much gas is in the tank?” Roy asked.

“Enough to get us back to the Mazda and then home,” John said as he sped out of the parking lot.

We’d gotten back to the broken down Mazda without any problems; getting back to Hargrove, however, was proving difficult. The infected had decided to have a parade in the streets in honor of our return trip, and it was not appreciated.

“How much worse could this day get?” Roy muttered loud enough for me to hear him.

“Have you never seen a horror movie? Never ask that,” I said.

John swerved around a couple of infected, almost sideswiping a fire hydrant.

We reached the gate to Hargrove, only for the guards peeking over the wall to stop us, weapons aimed at the car.

“Stop!” the Filipino lady demanded.

John got out to show them his face. “It’s us!”

The guard disappeared behind the wall and the gate cracked open. Our newly acquired Civic must have thrown them off, since they’d been expecting the Mazda to return.

“Bailey, we’re gonna need your Beretta,” John said.

I got out and began to pick off the groupies that had followed us back. John had purposely taken a less direct route to Hargrove to avoid this problem.
Stupid infected.

One by one, every infected I shot was transformed into one of the faceless mercenaries. They’d killed my friends, tried to kidnap me, and tried to kill me; I wanted them dead, and I wanted to be the one to kill them.
Just like Riley
.

My head shot up as that last thought echoed in my mind. I was scaring myself again with all the anger and resentment.

“Bailey, come on!” John shouted.

I turned and followed the car inside Hargrove. Once the gate closed behind us, people crowded in. Panic briefly gripped me as my mind registered the encroaching people as a group of infected.

“Where’s your car?”

“What happened?”

“I thought you were bringing others back?”

They hounded us with questions, their voices blending together all around me. I could feel my heart rate rising, my lungs struggling for air. I fought the urge to scream and cry all at once. My limbs were ice cold, yet my body felt like it was boiling.

“Move,” I said, no louder than a whisper.

No one got out of the way. They seemed like they were closing in even more. I felt like an injured animal waiting for a predator to strike.

“Move!” I screamed, my lungs still struggling for air.

The talking stopped, and I shoved my way through the crowd, heading for my condo. I needed to get away from everyone, from the noise and their gazes. I sprinted down the street and barreled through the front door. Once inside, I headed for my room, slamming the door behind me, and fell onto the bed.

The weight of the day came crashing down on me like a collapsed shelf of books. One by one, every dead face and every dodged bullet hit me. I hadn’t allowed myself to panic while we were on the outside, and holding it back had sent me into a full-on panic attack.
What is happening to me?

I thought I could deal with anything, but this world kept knocking me down. Around every corner was some new horror. We fought and clawed our way out only to find out we hadn’t fought hard enough.

I placed my hand over my heart, which was beating faster than if I’d just run ten miles. My stomach was in knots. I bolted for the bathroom as my gag reflex kicked in. I barely made it to the toilet before I heaved up the contents of my stomach. My eyes watered as I threw up for the last time. Using the bathtub as a brace, I sat down on the ragged bathmat and leaned against the cool acrylic surface, taking in numerous deep breaths.

A nasty, acidic taste coated my tongue. As I sat on the floor, breathing through my nose, my heart rate slowed to normal. I hadn’t had a panic attack since my first year at university.
Can’t say I missed it
.

Tears ran down my face and I let them drip onto my shirt. I missed the way my mom would squeeze-hug me. I’d pretended I hated it, but deep down, I loved the comfort it provided. I missed the way my dad would cuss out whoever or whatever was upsetting me, and then my mom would chastise him for using “foul language in front of the kids,” even though my brother and I were legally adults. I missed my family so much.

The front door opened, tearing my thoughts away from my family, and I wiped at my damp cheeks with the back of my hand. I listened to the footsteps approach the bathroom door. In my state, I’d forgotten to shut the door.

John appeared in the doorway, his face serious.

“I know it’s stupid to ask if you’re okay, since you ain’t, but are you?”

I looked down, not wanting to meet his eyes. The last person I wanted to think I was weak was John.

“You know, when I was in the Marines, I saw some shit. Now I know everybody who comes back says that, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Some men couldn’t handle what they saw and came back home a mess of a person.” John swallowed loudly. “I even dealt with some PTSD from the things I had to do. I tried booze, and all it got me was an ex-wife and lost years with my son. But I sobered up and took over my father’s store and got back into Taylor’s”—John’s face tightened at the mention of his son’s name—“life thanks to an amazin’ lady.

“My therapist, Ms. Turner, she got me right in the head again and set me down the path I was supposed to be on. Not a day goes by where I’m ashamed of askin’ for help. The tools she gave me are helpin’ me deal with my grief from Taylor’s death. The pain of losin’ a child is … hard to put into words. I pray you never have to go through it. I know Taylor would want me to keep goin’—after all, I helped raise him—so that’s what I’m goin’ to do. Keep livin’.”

John let me sort through his words in silence. I’d expected his speech to end with him thanking the Lord for his turn around, but he’d proved me wrong. He’d been through a lot, even before all this happened. He was a strong man. Here I was, freaking out—but alive—and John was trying to help me. He was the one who’d lost a child, and I’d never even asked if he was doing all right because I was a coward. I needed to be more like John.

“I don’t think Hargrove has a therapist,” I finally said.

“You don’t need someone with a fancy degree, just an ear and a desire to help.”

“Is that you?”

“Only if you want it to be.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I kind of need to sort through it all myself before I can sort through it with another person.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now flush that toilet please.”

The corner of my lips turned upward as I reached over and hit the lever.