This Would Be Paradise (Book 2) (23 page)

“It’s a mixed bag. They have
Pocahontas
, the Disney one,
Ghost Busters 2
, the original
Dawn of The Dead
.”

I cringed. “How about we skip that one?”

Ethan nodded. “And then there’s
Dennis the Menace
and all the
Lethal Weapons
.”

Old ladies really loved young Mel Gibson for some reason.

I thought about it. “I’m kind of a sucker for Disney.”

Ethan raised a brow.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone that.”

“I swear. So
Pocahontas
it is.”

We ate our last bites and cleaned up the plates before going into the living room. The atmosphere felt so … domestic, almost like we were putting the apocalypse aside for tonight. Which also made me feel a bit guilty.

“Behold,” Ethan said right before he plugged in the string lights. The room filled with a soft glow, just bright enough to not be overbearing. The living room looked like a teenage girl’s room, but I decided to keep that to myself.

“Oh wow,” I said, trying to sound impressed.

“Now for the hard part.” Ethan tinkered with the projector set up beside the couch. His arms were tight against the unyielding fabric of his dress shirt. Looked like he’d put on some muscle, not that I was complaining—far from it. I felt a little pervy for leering at him while he was unaware.

After a few minutes of struggling to get it to work and muttering angrily at the old technology, Ethan succeeded and the Disney intro started, the castle projected on the screen.

“Is there sound?”

“Just a minute.”

Some more tinkering later, and then music blared. I had to cover my ears. When he got it down to a humane volume, we sat together on the couch, his arm draped over my shoulders. I leaned into him, enjoying the feel of his body against mine.

“I tried it out earlier and it didn’t do that,” Ethan pouted.

“Sure, sure.”

He squeezed me and kissed the side of my head.

“But I’m doin’ pretty good so far, ain’t I?”

I tsked. “Guys, you always need confirmation, don’t you?”

“That’s ‘cause you girls are a tricky bunch.”

By the time the scavenging trip rolled around the next morning, I was ready to go. Some normality was just what I’d needed and Ethan’s date night had really helped. That next morning, a set of grinning friends prying for details had met us. Zoe still hadn’t let up, swooning over Ethan’s romantic surprise. It kind of sounded like she was jealous, since Darren would never do anything like that.

Speak of the devil. I looked out the condo window to see the truck pull up. Darren must have gotten up early to pack up the massive truck for our scavenging trip before coming to get me. We’d have enough weapons, food, and ammo to last us a couple days if we had to stay away for an extended period of time. All our friends had crowded into my small living room for another round of farewells.

John was pacing, nervous about letting me go out. He had another group to train today. Even though he and Grant had had their little spat, they were still behaving like adults and running the gun training together. Zoe was playing with the silver necklace around her neck, and Ethan was practically pulling out his hair as he sat on the edge of the couch. He was lucky the old lady who’d owned this condo hadn’t put plastic on the furniture; he would have slid straight off. Chloe gave me the matching pirate hat she’d made for good luck, saying we were like real pirates plundering treasure. Not that we’d be hitting up banks for gold bars, but still, it was cute of her.

Oddly enough, I was quite relaxed. I’d had a few days to recover from my breakdown of sorts and was looking forward to putting it behind me. The ever-growing danger the mercenaries posed, however, was in the back of my mind. I couldn’t forget about what they’d done. I needed to stay alert and keep an eye out for signs of them on the road.

“Well, my ride’s here.” I opened the door and walked to the truck with my backpack over my shoulder. Everyone followed me out.

Darren had gotten out of the truck and Zoe was currently hugging and kissing him to death. She then came over to me and wrapped me in a big hug.

She spoke quietly into my ear, “I know you’ve been having a rough time. When you come back, we’ll have a night where it’s just you, me, bad movies, and tequila, okay?”

“Sounds like university all over again.”

The next bear hug came from Ethan and included a kiss. “You be safe, okay? We got date number two next.”

I raised a brow at that. “Will it top our lovely dinner and movie night?”

“You’ll see.” Ethan winked, releasing me from our hug.

It felt like I was going away to war and everyone was giving me their last goodbye. When we’d left earlier in the week, our farewell hadn’t gone like this. Maybe they were worried because of my “episode.”

John was the last in line and gave me a tight hug. “When you get back, I expect a long talk, you hear?”

“I promise, but it might have to wait after my girls’ night.”

He placed his hands on my face and kissed the top of my head in a very fatherly way.

“Be safe. Do you still have that suppressor I gave you?” he asked.

“Like hell I was giving that back to them.” I pointed to the mismatched gun and suppressor tucked in my belt.

“Good, ‘cause I technically stole it,” John admitted with a grin. So that’s where Taylor had gotten his klepto tendencies.

I tossed my bag into the back as I hefted myself into the passenger seat. The truck was lifted, requiring more effort to jump into than most vehicles.

“You ready?” Darren asked.

“As much as I can be.” I peered into the backseat, expecting to see a stockpile of weapons. “What, no automatic rifles?”

“They make too much noise when we’re out in the open. Silenced handguns are better for in and out missions. Plus, when you’re carrying supplies, the rifles are just added weight.”

Two other vehicles joined us at the gate.

“Are they coming with us?” I asked. Darren had never mentioned them.

“Not exactly,” Darren said. “We go out in groups, then split up. We get more supplies by fanning out.”

“Why split up?”

“It’s easier to do runs with less people to worry about. You can move fast and bail if need be when you’re in a smaller group.”

“You better not bail on me,” I said, narrowing my eyes into slits.

“Zoe would have my head.”

“Glad to know
that’s
the reason,” I muttered.

The driver of one of the other vehicles waved at the guards to open the gate, then we drove out like a convoy. For the second time in a week, I left the walls of Hargrove. I took a shaky breath to dispel my nerves. Something about being safety tucked away behind stone walls made the thought of
not
being behind them scary. That was the main reason I’d wanted to go on this run; I didn’t want to end up like those who couldn’t function out in the open. Well that, and I wanted to prove I was okay after my panic attack.

The two vehicles behind us veered off, one going left, the other right.

“I guess they decided where they were going?”

“Yeah, we talked it over this morning. They wanted to see how far out they could go and still find supplies. We’re going west.” Darren looked at me. “That’s the way we’re heading right now.”

“I knew that, jackass.”

“Just making sure.” He turned his smirking face back to the road.

We dodged infected after infected, the map on the dashboard shifting every time Darren took a sharp turn. I was growing tired of watching it, so I grabbed the map and stuffed it into one of the console slots so it would stay put.

“How far out do you think we need to go?” I asked.

“Until we find a place that people haven’t likely raided already.”

“So way farther out then?”

“You got it.”

“You get that chicken feed location from Byron?”

“On that map you grabbed. Byron circled some of the seed and feed stores we can try. I figure we’ll head in that general direction and stop anywhere that looks good along the way.”

Darren gave up trying to dodge every single infected in our way and rammed into them instead. Since the truck was lifted, the infected hit the deer guard on the front and bounced underneath the truck. Having this much clearance was perfect.

We passed a McDonald’s and my mouth watered.

“I’d kill for a Big Mac,” I said, almost drooling.

“Kill, eh?” Darren raised a brow.

I froze as I realized what I’d said. “It’s a figure of speech. I didn’t mean literally.”

“I know that. It’s just … you’ve seemed different since you arrived. Like the way you reacted when Chloe brought up you having a bruised neck. I don’t really buy the whole ‘falling down stairs’ story, by the way.”

I sucked in a breath. Darren sure picked up on a lot of things, especially when I didn’t want him to.

I wiped at some imaginary dirt on my pants. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can tell me. I won’t judge.” When I didn’t respond, he sighed. “Fine.”

We sat in awkward silence until I turned to him. “You remember us telling you about that guy who held us prisoner at the police station?”

“Riley?”

I nodded and the words rushed from my lips, “Well he found me at the medical center I was raiding for antibiotics. He tried to kill me, but I killed him first. That’s how I got the bruises on my neck. And when we were at the apartments, I stabbed one of my would-be kidnappers in the lung and he drowned in his own blood.” I had to stop to take a breath. “Then when I was on that run two days ago with John and Roy, I shot two more of those asshole mercenaries.”

Darren let my confession hang in the air for a bit before he finally piped in. “You did what you had to. Don’t you
dare
be ashamed of that. All those people had it coming. It’s not like you went after them. They came after you.”

After all the time I’d spent struggling with the fact that I’d killed actual human beings, it was a huge relief to hear someone say that. I looked out my window and inconspicuously wiped away the tear that had slipped down my cheek. I’d held on to that burden for so long. It had been eating away at me like a parasite, and for some reason, I found it easier to tell Darren all this. I’d had ample time to tell my friends, but couldn’t get the words out. I could picture John frowning because I’d opened up to Darren instead of him, even after he’d shared his war story.

Darren swerved the truck, ruining my moment of tranquility. I had to brace myself on the center console to stop my ribs from becoming better acquainted with the hard unit.

“What the hell, Darren?” I demanded.

“We’re taking a little detour,” he said.

I looked around the area, spotting a road sign that stated Tulane University campus was five miles down the road.

“To the university?” I asked. “No way. I’ve done my time.”

He cast a grin my way. “We can hit up the dorms. Most stores in the city have already been raided, so we need to search places people wouldn’t have thought to look at.”

“All we’ll find, if we find anything at all, will be Cheetos and ramen noodles,” I said.

“Better than no food. If broke university students can live off it, so can we.”

I had no response to that.

Saying the campus was big would have been an understatement. It must have spanned
blocks
.

“Which of these buildings are the dorms?” I asked. All the structures varied in size and age.

“Don’t know. Once we get close enough, we can look through the doors.”

Darren drove over the curb to our left, which was no obstacle for the lifted truck, and drove down the wide walkways originally meant for students. We cut through the lush quad that had fallen into disarray with no groundskeeper to mow the lawn or pick up the garbage. The truck left tire marks as it trampled down the lengthy grass, so the wandering infected trailed along the path we had made. The grass came to an end and Darren veered off to the right, stopping in front of a glass-paneled building. The massive windows reached from the ground to the next floor, illuminating the inside and allowing us to peek in. A square marvel of glass and steel girder architecture, the building was modernly designed compared to some of the older brown buildings we’d passed on campus.

“I think there’s a food court in there,” Darren said. He inched the truck flush against the front steps.

I squinted and looked inside the building from my seat. It looked like the usual food court you’d find in a mall. Fast food stalls lined the inside and plastic tables and chairs covered the rest of the area.

“Looks like we found our first stop,” Darren said, cutting the engine.

A group of infected were hanging around like ducks in a pond waiting to be fed. We got out of the truck as they shambled toward us. I lifted my loaded Beretta and chambered a round before taking out the five of them with precise, muffled shots. The suppressor wasn’t a hundred percent silent, but it certainly dampened an otherwise loud gunshot.
Thank you, John, you klepto.

“I have to say, I did not expect you to turn out to be a good shot.”

I glared at him. “Rude.”

He ignored my reply and pulled his backpack on. I grabbed my own, the extra bullets and magazine jingling inside the bag. All we needed was a handful of two-hundred-dollar textbooks that students didn’t crack open until midterms to complete the college freshman look. Instead of the textbooks, I grabbed my axe to wield.

Darren approached the glass doors and looked inside. An infected flattened itself against the inside of the door, opening it enough to smash Darren in the face.

“Goddammit!” he bellowed as he stumbled down the two short steps.

The infected had managed to get itself out of the building and was perched on the first step.

“You brought an axe, right?” Darren turned to me while pinching his nose.

“Here.” I passed it to him, my eyes never leaving the ill-mannered infected.

He ran back up the steps and swung with brute force at the infected. Decayed skin splattered all over the door as the pinging sound of teeth hitting glass rang out. Darren had hit the thing so hard that half of its face now decorated the glass, but it still stirred from its new spot on the landing.

Darren loomed over it and used the blunt end of the axe to crush its skull. It cracked like a clay pot and the infected stopped moving. He shoved the body out of the way. More infected had gathered on the grounds as if we’d announced there was free beer. The ones that had followed us through the overgrown quad were now just reaching the sidewalk. An infected snuck around the truck and lunged at us from the other side of the grill. I took it out with one shot. It fell face first onto the steps, looking as if we’d parked on top of it.

“We’re going to be surrounded soon,” I said nervously as I watched the infected close in on us.

The city population of infected was larger than the one by the cabin or even around the small towns we’d been to.

“Come on,” Darren said and together we entered the building.

“How do we keep these doors shut?” I asked.