CHAPTER FIVE
I awoke before the sun the next day, worried about Kyle. Riley was sleeping in the twin bed across the room. Pulling a robe over my pajamas, I wandered out of the room. Peeking in the boys’ room, I saw Kyle’s bed empty and Alexi and Justin still asleep in the bunk beds. The three bedrooms upstairs were occupied by my dad, Paulina and Viktor and Melanie. The house was quiet. Stopping in the bathroom, I brushed my teeth then continued my search.
Kyle was lying on the couch in the family room and, by the expression on his face, happy to see me. “Hey, babe. Sleep good?”
Before answering him, I crouched down and touched my lips to his. When I was done, he looked even happier. “Would’ve liked to sleep longer, but I’m glad my guy is back to normal.”
“Sit with me on the deck?” he asked. I gave him a deeper kiss in answer.
As he hobbled his way out the door, I wanted to assist him, but without the effects of drugs I knew he was back to his old self and wanted to do it on his own. He was a boy when it all began and turned into a man in the harshest of circumstances. Kyle’s parents died in the first days, trying to scavenge for supplies while we were all still deluded enough to think we could hide in our suburban homes. Being an only child, he had only us when they were gone.
We settled in matching Adirondack chairs on our deck overlooking the dark mountain. A waning moon offered little light, but I saw him wincing while trying to get comfortable. We sat here often, enjoying the serenity of our secluded cabin and the woods surrounding it.
Several mountain roads led to our cabin and we habitually blocked off the long driveway leading up here, making it look like nature had caused the blockage. Still, if anyone dead or alive made it through the trees, they’d find the immediate area barricaded. We’d used anything we could, including an old school bus, barbed wire and chain link fence to make a perimeter around the cabin, stables and outbuildings. A zombie would have to be pretty wily to get through without making a sound. The bells we’d attached to string and hung around the barricade would give it away.
Whoever built this place hadn’t meant it to be a yuppie retreat. The stables were perfect because we were able to keep animals. A couples horses, cows, chickens and pigs resided there. In our garden we grew anything that could thrive in the Colorado climate. That was Paulina’s domain, along with the kitchen, but we all chipped in to help. We did alright here and never disclosing the location of our home to people we encountered at the settlements or on the road.
“Tomorrow night is the party,” Kyle reminded me.
“Yeah, the brat is going to be fifteen. Maybe she’ll finally start to grow up,” I grumbled half-heartedly. Things were so much easier when Riley idolized me. That stopped years ago and compliance disappeared right with it.
“You love her,” Kyle commented, squeezing my hand.
“Yeah,” I reluctantly agreed. “It’s my curse.” Laughing, I added, “Well, my other curse.”
“It’s saved us enough times to be considered a blessing.”
“I suppose.”
We sat there in companionable silence, watching the rising sun illuminate the world with color again. I was lost in thought when Kyle reached over and took my left hand. He slid the ring on my finger in a smooth move. “I wanted to get down on one knee for this, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back up,” he said wryly.
“Kyle?” I asked, unsure.
“Marry me, Anya?” he asked softly.
I looked from the ring to him, warmth spreading in my chest and tears pooling in my eyes. In a choked whisper, I gave him my answer, “Okay.” Then, bringing his face down to mine, I reinforced that answer with a kiss.
As I sighed, Kyle let out a deep chuckle. “Finally.”
I knew exactly what he meant. We were twenty years old, been together for years, but always surrounded by people. There was no way my dad would object to us sharing a room if we were married. There was a pastor at the Fort Collins settlement who could seal the deal. Next time we were there, the deed would be done and Kyle and I could finally be free to be together in any way we chose without the disapproval of our loved ones. Not that anyone ever said a word against Viktor and Melanie sharing a room. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d ever get away with the same thing, though.
“I love you, honey,” I told him with everything I felt.
“Babe, I’ve always loved you, since you came over with your Dr. Who action figures.”
“I could’ve sworn it was for my comic book collection,” I teased him.
“Nope,” he said succinctly. “It was the action figures.”
I beamed at my ring. “It’s beautiful. How’d you afford something so big?” The diamond solitaire wasn’t gaudy, but it was a good chunk of rock. One great thing about the world ending, the jewelry stores had poor security. As in, no security anymore.
With a groan he pulled me over and onto his lap. “Got it on credit,” he said playfully. “Now give me a preview of your wifely duties.”
“Breakfast?” I asked in mock confusion.
“This first,” he whispered. His lips were hot on mine and within seconds I was hot in other places.
“Gross, get a room!” said a disgruntled voice from inside the house.
We separated with mutual reluctance. “What are you doing up so early, Alexi?”
“Hungry,” he grunted out. “Where’s Paulina?”
“Asleep,” I said in a duh voice. “She’s not your personal chef, Alexi, have some respect!”
Standing in the doorway now, he rubbed his bare stomach. “I’m a growing boy, I need sustenance.”
“There should be some tortillas left from the other day, eat one of those.”
“Justin ate the last one yesterday.”
Exasperated, I lashed out at him. “Go away Alexi, Kyle and I are having a moment.”
“Gross,” he repeated, his face scrunched up to emphasize his opinion.
Kyle was laughing underneath me. Holding up my left hand, he told Alexi, “I’ll be moving out of our room soon.”
“Shit, does that mean Riley is moving in? No way, man.”
“Chill out, Alexi,” Kyle ordered. “I’ve already thought this out. We use the sixth bedroom as a storage room. We can clear that out and move it all down to the basement.”
Alexi didn’t like Kyle’s idea. “That’s were Justin and I hang out.”
“Hang out somewhere else or hang out in our new storage area.”
Looking unhappy still, Alexi said, “Whatever. I’m making myself eggs.”
The sound of crunching leaves woke me from my daydreaming of the pretty, but simple, wedding dress I was going to scavenge for. Stretching my arms behind my back, I sucked in a huge breath of balmy mountain air.
When I was growing up in the old world we constantly heard environmentalist propaganda about global warming and how important it was to “save the world” and now we were just struggling to save ourselves. It seemed Mother Nature was once again safe from man’s destructive tendencies. Everywhere we went she’d already begun to reclaim the land.
Well, those environmentalists would be happy. That was, if they were alive.
Trampling footsteps grew louder and I could hear the labored breathing of Justin approaching. His turn was next at our little watchtower. Viktor and Melanie had stumbled upon the elevated hunting blind three summers ago and kept it as a secret love nest for awhile. I tried not to think about what these four walls had seen. The perch was conveniently located about halfway down the mountain and provided a solid vantage point of Breckenridge and the roads around it. We’d camouflaged it in such a way that it was almost invisible to the casual passerby.
Justin appeared from the trees toting a small backpack and wearily climbed his way up.
“Hey, Anya,” he said glumly upon reaching the summit.
“Good morning, Justin. What’s up?” I asked with a smile. Justin was prone to fits of melancholy when he got stuck inside his own head. He and Alexi c
ouldn’t have been more different. Alexi was the Tigger to Justin’s Eeyore, but they’d been best friends since the first day of Little League. I cringed at the thought of how much more trouble Alexi would get into without the cautious, sometimes cowardly, influence Justin had on him.
“Nothing,” he replied hesitantly. Sometimes it was best to just let people feel their feelings without interfering. If Justin was in his sourpuss mood, I’d leave him to it. The phrase It’s not the end of the world had unfortunately become meaningless. A more apt phrase may be Life sucks, then you turn cannibal. However, Justin throwing himself from our watchtower in a fit of hopelessness would suck more, so I kept my silence.
It was almost six years ago when my family had packed into our minivan and headed to the baseball fields for Alexi’s game. He and Justin were on the same team for the fourth year in a row and our families were good friends. Mom had been there handing out juice boxes and snacks to all of us in the bleachers. Justin’s parents were out of town for a wedding so Paulina had been charged with watching him over the weekend. The Arizona sun was setting, the field’s lights were flickering on and the kids were set to take the field. I remember mom and dad taking turns paying attention to Riley’s incessant chattering about the boy band of the moment. Not that I didn’t think back then that the bad boy of the group was so hot. I was fourteen, after all.
It was so hot that night. In the third inning Justin hit a ball into the outfield and, as we watched the ball roll to the fence, something strange happened. A man had jumped over the fence and tackled the boy running after the ball. The boy’s angry coach, along with a dad helping out on the field, ran out and tried to subdue the man. We watched in horror as the lunatic bit him in the neck.
That’s when things turned into mayhem. More people were jumping over the fence and attacking the kids. One woman in a nurse’s uniform jumped onto the shortstop only a few feet from Justin and bit the poor boy’s ear off.
Parents from all directions rushed to save their children and my mom ushered us to the parking lot as dad grabbed Alexi in the dugout. Alexi was screaming that we couldn’t leave Justin and Paulina. Dad yelled at mom to start the car as he ran back toward the carnage, little aluminum bat in hand. We waited in that parking lot for what seemed like forever before dad returned with both Justin and a wheezing Paulina. That’s the day they became more than friends. From then on out they were family.
We never found out what happened to Justin’s parents.
“You hungry?” Justin asked while handing me a plastic container full of beans, rice and eggs.
“Yes, thank you,” I greedily replied, wasting no time digging into my lunch. We sat there in relaxed silence for a while, me thinking about my satisfied belly and Justin thinking about whatever angsty teenage boys thought about.
After eating, I joined Justin at the lookout window. He was staring thoughtfully at the ashy remnants of the town of Breckenridge in the distance. “Do you ever feel bad about what we did there?” he questioned, nodding at the ruins.
When we moved here my father decided the best way to avoid other people settling near us would be to leave them nowhere to live. We set to work burning as much of the town down as possible while keeping the fire contained. Yeah, that’d been especially fun when the smoke and the flames had attracted the dead. Once my power had been used up each day we’d resorted to manual methods.
There were still buildings intact, but not many, and definitely not enough to make the place enticing to settlers. It was because of our pyromaniac tendencies that we first met Mac, our only neighbor for miles. “I don’t feel great about it,” I mused. “But our safety is more important than a few empty buildings.”
“Suppose you’re right,” Justin answered pensively, pushing up his glasses.
“Don’t think about it so much. Just be glad-”
“Do you hear that?” he interjected quietly.
I immediately tested my ears and strained my eyes in all directions and after a moment could hear the deep grunts of a large animal heading toward us. Instinctually, both of us ducked down and peeked over the bottom of the window cautiously. Carefully unholstering my pistol, I flicked off the safety. The animal was getting closer and the grunts drowned out the songbirds.
Peering over the edge, we saw the bear enter the small clearing in front of us. From its massive size and deep brown color my guess would be a grizzly bear, but they weren’t supposed to live this far south. We saw smaller black bears from time to time and stayed out of their way. Perhaps without human interference grizzlies were starting to migrate down from Wyoming.
That was a scary possibility, like we didn’t have enough trouble keeping the zombies out of our neighborhood. Now we’d have giant predators moving in? Another scary thought? Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone years ago. If they also migrated down to Colorado, life would get even harder.
Behind the honey-colored grizzly down below, struggling to keep up, were two small, darker brown cubs. The mother bear stopped midway through the clearing, testing the air, sniffing for the faint scent it detected. She bared her teeth for a moment and looked right in our direction. The pierce of those incisors wouldn’t feel good. I briefly contemplated carrying two tomahawks from now on, just to even out the odds.
It was as though she knew we were there but just couldn’t see us. The cubs wrestled with each other playfully, oblivious to their mother’s suspicions. Mama bear grunted and the babies filed into position behind her. The bears set off again, but after a few steps the mother once again stopped and sniffed the air. That’s when we heard the deliberate steps of several people below us and I felt them. If I hadn’t been distracted by the wildlife I would’ve noticed sooner.
The bear growled menacingly at whoever was beneath our vantage point. The cubs nervously hid behind their mother as the steps continued into the clearing. Five zombies on the hunt entered our line of sight and they too appeared to sniff the air around them. The Grizzly again growled at the zombies closing in, who at this time increased their pace and charged the bears. The baby bears scurried to the trees, trying to hide. The zombies, indifferent to the bear’s crunching bites, flailed and frantically snapped their overmatched jaws. Two more flesh-eaters came from the woods to the north and clumsily rushed the outnumbered bear who was desperately trying to keep her tenacious attackers at bay.
The most aggressive of the zombies broke through and clamped down on the grizzly’s exposed back, wrenching flesh and fur with his jaws. The bear retreated and angrily bit the infected man in the upper thigh. Aim for the head, bear! The bear’s claws were probably as sharp as the spike of my tomahawk. The zombie was only momentarily dazed and limped pathetically toward the retreating bear. The other zombies formed almost a tactical formation and charged at the grizzly.
I’d never heard of the undead hunting with a pack mentality, but they were showing similar traits here. Usually they tended to be more competitive than cooperative with each other. Both baby bears rushed to their mother protectively, and in the instant her attention was drawn away from the aggressors she was bitten again in the neck. With a swipe of claws, a zombie was partially decapitated. Another swipe and a zombie’s guts were sliding out. Not that it fazed him at all. Unfortunately, there were too many and things weren’t looking good for the bear.
“This isn’t right,” muttered Justin as he unstrapped his hunting rifle and aimed down the sights.
Before I could urge him not to fire he had already plugged one of the zombies in the temple. The fighting ceased for a moment as the fallen zombie, a woman with a dangling eye and a chunk missing from her leg, fell to the ground.
The baby bears once again tried to retreat, but one of them was caught by a male. Wearing army greens, he appeared to have recently joined the ranks of pointless death machines from his fresh, barely decomposed look. If not for the black ooze dripping from his nostrils, he might have looked normal. He enthusiastically bit into the bear cub like a fat kid devouring a cheese
burger.
Blood flew in all directions, sending my heart and stomach into knots. Justin again fired and, before I knew it, I too was aiming to kill the biters. Two more fell and the bear took this chance to make an escape. The grizzly stopped to nudge its fallen cub, making what sounded to me like a grieving roar. We watched as she cleared the trees and the baby who survived once again joined her side.
Justin and I dispatched of the remaining few zombies as they gluttonously filled themselves with the beautiful bear cub. I hadn’t felt this sad about anything in a long time and, from the corner of my eye, I saw a few tears forming in Justin’s eyes. He looked away and made an obvious effort to fidget with his gun while they faded away.
My walkie-talkie squawked. “Everything all right down there?”
After hitting the push-to-talk button, I replied to my dad. “Justin and I are fine.”
“Need me to come down?”
“We’ve got it covered. I’m going to stick around for awhile. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back,” I told him and ended communication.
I examined the scene below us and, after determining it was safe, descended the ladder into the clearing. Slowly walking toward the bodies littering the ground with weapon raised, I stopped to execute a twitching zombie. I could hear Justin behind me trying to stifle his heavy, anxious breathing. We reached the epicenter of the attack and found the bear cub still faintly clinging to life. Painful as it was, one of us would have to end the baby’s suffering. Seeing how emotionally broken Justin was at this very moment, it would have to be me. I fired once.
“Why didn’t you stop them, Anya?” Justin croaked harshly.
Turning to face him, I let him see my own sadness. “I may end up regretting it, but I’d regret it more if I saved the bears and couldn’t save us later.” Justin knew as well as I did to expect the unexpected. This wasn’t the first animal we’d seen taken down by the dead. If I tried to save every one, I could be too tapped out to save our group.
“Is the mother bear going to die?” asked Justin dejectedly.
“I don’t know, haven’t seen what happens to an infected bear before, but we can go find out,” I answered more confidently than I felt.
“You mean we follow them?” he questioned cautiously.
“That’s exactly what I meant,” I replied with false bravado.
We found the opening where the bears made their escape and surveyed the grass and bushes. Neither of us had ever done any tracking, but that wouldn’t matter now. There was a morbid trail of bread crumbs. The birds resumed their singing and their cheery song provided little happiness as we followed the bloody trail. A stream ran along our path when we ascended deeper into the woods.
Carrying our guns locked and loaded, we anticipated any confrontation, be it animal or man. Normally, few zombies trekked this high into the mountains, which was part of its appeal, thus why we’d settled here. The blood grew denser as we neared the mountain lake.
We were so focused on looking ahead, so as not to aggravate the injured bear, that we nearly ran right into it. To our left, just behind a cluster of aspen trees, the bear lay on the ground, struggling to breathe. The cub was hopelessly burrowing into its side, crying out weakly.
At the sight before us, I came to the likely conclusion that being bit by the infected would end the same for a bear as I’d seen it end for dogs, cats, deer and a multitude of other animals. The popular theory was that the infected were attracted to anything warm-blooded with a beating heart. Among other scenarios, I’d imagined cheetahs, lions and giraffes being chased around the African plains by the famished dead.
We approached slowly, the bear smelling us before actually seeing us. The baby bravely stood between us and its dying mother. The grizzly stood up anemically and faced us in a final act of defiance before flopping back to the ground.
I’d seen the effect of the virus on other animals and knew they weren’t capable of reanimating after dying. If they were infected, they died an agonizing death and stayed dead. At least, I’d never encountered a zombie cat or zombie squirrel. Either one flying towards Justin would make him piss his pants. I found myself picturing a zombie panda and how cute and deadly it could be. What was wrong with me?
“Anya, we need to end her suffering,” Justin declared while holding his gun on baby bear in case of attack. I could tell he was trying his best to act macho despite the crazy situation. This was quite a feat for him considering how he’d cried and locked himself in his room when our other family dog, Peaches, had died two years earlier.
Justin walked a few steps forward and, hands shaking, shot the bear in the head with his Ruger bolt action rifle. The cub clawed and nipped at his booted feet, squealing something terrible. Yeah, not the same as when a puppy does it. Those boots were ruined. Justin let out a little squeal himself and jumped back when the cub would’ve swiped at his shins. I’m pretty sure those claws could cut through denim.
“What are we supposed to do with the cub?” Justin asked from a yard or so behind me.
“We can’t leave it here alone. It’ll die, probably eaten by a mountain lion,” I replied with determination.
“There’s no way Levi will let us keep it,” Justin responded, coming to stand beside me. “And my grandma will freak out.”
She may freak out, or she may wonder what bear meat fajitas would taste like. Paulina’s crazy could go either way. “We can decide all that once we get back to the house. For now, you’ll have to carry him home, Justin,” I announced smugly, then added as an afterthought, “Maybe Mac will want him.”
Justin glared at me then strapped his rifle to his back. He circled behind the animal and gingerly bent down to hoist up the distraught bear cub, teeth and claws facing away from him. Despite the grave circumstances, it was hilarious watching Justin gripping the cub around the middle of its torso from behind.
Justin faced me squarely. “So, is it a boy or girl, Anya?”
I glanced down on reflex and quickly back up again. Laughing, I answered him, “Not that I’m an expert, Justin, but I’d say you’re now the proud papa of a baby boy.”
“What’s up with that?” he muttered. “First that little brat, Zeke, and now this bear cub. We’re picking up orphans left and right.”
With me leading the way, we walked down the mountain, following the bloody trail all the way back to the grisly clearing. I felt it before I saw it. The more there are, the better I could sense them. One or two, and I have to be closer to them to know they’re there.
When we entered the dell there was a zombie, a girl in her late teens, eating the remains of our new pet’s sibling. The zombie looked up and bared its teeth to reveal a set of braces rife with fresh flesh. It was so disgusting I almost threw up the meal Justin had brought me.
Normally I would’ve shot the bracefaced bitch in the head, but we were trying to go all incognito mode. I unsheathed my beloved battle axe and swung at the approaching zombie. She fell to the ground, tomahawk fully implanted in her forehead, eyes dripping black smut. I grabbed the handle, planted my foot against her decaying chest and pulled. Wiping the smut on the grass, I sheathed the blade and made a mental note to clean it later.
We approached the tree stand and Justin hustled up to grab the few belongings we’d left there. That left me in charge of the pissed off bear cub. I held him and bounced him gently, hoping he’d fall asleep. Not that I’d ever had any experience with babies, human or otherwise. I was still too young when Riley was a baby to have been of any help.
Justin once again appeared and looked at me jealously now. “You know, I can carry him again if you want,” he offered transparently. It seemed his new paternal instincts were firing on all cylinders. Not to mention, he usually loved animals when he wasn’t scared of them eating him.
“Nah, that’s okay. I got him,” I teased him just to be a pain.
We made the trek back home, stopping once when my arms got tired to transfer custody of the baby. It had been a lo
ng, strange day and I was ready for an afternoon siesta. Paulina usually took one around this time.
Kyle was waiting for me outside our barricade. Arms crossed, leaning against the back of the bus to keep weight off his leg. Hobbling to me, his eyes bugged out at the sight of baby bear in Justin’s arms. “Who’s your friend?”
Leaning against him and tilting my face up for a kiss, I waited until his lips brushed against mine before answering. “We’re thinking of calling him Cocoa. What do you think?”
“I think . . .” he started slowly, “Paulina is going to freak out.”
I nodded my head in Justin’s direction. “That’s what he said.”
“And your dad will tell you to set it free in the wild.”
“Mac might want him,” I suggested. “Then we could visit him whenever we want!” This plan was sounding better and better. We push responsibility off onto our grumpy neighbor and drop in just to play with Cocoa when it suited us.
Studying the cub, Kyle asked Justin, “What kind of bear is that?”
Justin shrugged one shoulder. “His mom was huge. She couldn’t have been a black bear, had to be a grizzly bear.”
Kyle whistled. “Damn. What happened?”
“We’ll tell you along with everyone else,” I told him as I opened the rear emergency exit to the bus and hopped inside.
As Justin struggled to get in behind me, I wondered if we could scavenge one of those front baby carrier things so the cub could be strapped in. I imagined Mac wearing one of those while toting the baby bear around and started laughing.
“What?” Justin snapped out with a scowl.
“Nothing,” I assured him innocently.
Our secret entrance into what I liked to refer to as the compound wasn’t complicated. We enter through the back emergency exit of the school bus then walked down the aisle to the front entry door and we were in. We had other ways in, some not so sneaky.
Walking up to the house, Riley came out to meet us, hopping down the porch steps. “Justin, where’d you find it? It’s so adorable. Can I have it?” Just as she reached for the bear its arms moved and she screamed, running back up the steps. “Holy shit! Is that thing real?” She breathed out another, “Holy shit,” then slammed back into the house.
I beamed at Kyle. “That just made it totally worth it.”
“You have a black heart, babe.”
Holding a hand to my chest, I gave him a puppy dog look. “But this black heart belongs to you.”
“Damn straight it does,” he practically growled, giving me that look, the one he usually saves for when we manage to find some private time. God, I couldn’t wait until we were sharing a room.