“You got to, Ginny.” His hands tensed, not quite fists but definitely not relaxed. A thin scar along the bottom of his jaw flushed. What was the story behind that one, she wondered? It looked like a childhood injury. “So’s I can do what you need me to.”
Well, he was already upset, she might as well ask. “Why do you say things like that? I mean, you barely even know me, and—”
“I can spend however long you like gettin to know you, Ginny. Be right happy to.” He made another restless movement, and she was suddenly extremely aware of her own weakness. Bruised all over, barely able to walk across a room without heavy breathing that would make a horror movie proud, and alone in here.
With him.
Oh, God. She gathered what little intelligence had managed to ride some caffeine into her bloodstream, and folded her hands primly. “What I mean is, this is a…an extreme situation, and it can make you think you feel things you don’t.” There. It was out, it was said, and she was an idiot for even trying to broach this subject now.
There was never a good time to tell a guy that what he was feeling, although probably intense, might not be…real.
“Like I’m havin a heart attack each time I see you?” Lee’s mouth turned up at the corners, and some of the tension left his shoulders. “I got news for you, darlin, that happened the first time I laid eyes on you, and hasn’t stopped since.”
“Oh.”Any shred of caffeinated brainpower drained away.
Because, damn the man, he looked…serious. Well, to be honest, he rarely looked anything but solemn, you had to watch closely to get the shadow of amusement or perplexity crossing his face, like cloud-shadows on the Great Plains. Ginny’s back seized up as she shifted, and the pillows behind her weren’t helping.
He kept going, spacing the words evenly, taking his time. “I know I’m just a backwoods redneck without fancy manners or a divin watch, but I can get you through this, if you let me. You gotta start tellin me what’s goin on, so I can do what I gotta.”
A diving watch? What? “And what is it, precisely, that you’ve got to do?” Taking refuge in politeness was pretty much all she could muster.
“Keep you alive, Miss Virginia.” He relaxed even further, and that smile widened. He looked flat-out happy, now, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Like he’d just figured something out. If he had, she wished he’d share. “You got some sort of problem with that?”
“No. I don’t. Thank you.” She sounded unhelpful, even to herself. It was a reflex, deployed over and over ever since she’d broken up with Alec in med school.
After that party. That stupid, awful, frat-boy party. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t gone, but then, she would have found out about him later rather than sooner. He’d begun to make hints about marriage, as soon as he finished his residency.
Wouldn’t that have been a nightmare.
“Ginny.” Lee half-turned and settled on the edge of the bed, and she was very conscious that the pillow next to her own when she woke up had most definitely been used. He considered her journal, lying closed on her lap, but it was her left hand he picked up, gently, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, smoothing, comforting. “You got to help me out here. Start tellin me those worries before you end up doin somethin I can’t fix.”
It was ridiculous, but her mouth opened and what she was thinking fell right out. “There’s nothing you can’t fix, Lee.”
“God, I hope you’re right.” His smile turned into a downright grin. He held her hand like it was fragile, turned it over, touched her palm. There was a red stripe of abrasion there, probably from moving the dresser.
And there was the little matter of the bruise on the inside of her right arm. It looked, for all the world, like a needle had gone in, almost missing a vein.
There had to be another explanation, she told herself firmly.
Ginny let Lee pull her forward. He slid his arms around her, and she rested her forehead against his shoulder, the hard edges of her journal digging into her ribs. It hurt a little, but so did the rest of her.
Her nose wasn’t stuffy at all.
That night, the power in Louisville—which meant the hotel—went out, and a cold, heavy sleet rattled on every wall and window.
Entirely Decided
Lee grabbed for it, but Ginny backed up and he had to stop for fear of toppling her.
“I’ll be fine.” She hefted the heavy plastic tub, RIDGID stenciled on its side in glaring yellow. Traveller wove underfoot, and she almost staggered when he stropped her leg. “I promise. Just don’t give me two at a time.”
“No ma’am.” Steph grinned, thin twin braids crossed at the back of her head again. She was even trying to copy Ginny’s posture, head up and shoulders back. “I ain’t gonna take two either.” She hefted her own tub, its yellow highlights cheerful spots of color in the dim, echoing stairwell. It was full of ammunition, and there were two final ones stacked neat and prim on the landing. Mark had a good head on him, suggesting these tool-haulers rather than the cardboard boxes.
Lee suppressed the urge to follow Ginny and snatch the heavy box from her trembling hands. “You two get on, then. We’ll finish the haulin.”
“Nothin but those left to drag out.” Mark stretched, leaning from side to side, his arms overhead. He was bulking up, no longer swimming in his new coat. Which wasn’t as new as it had been, seeing hard use lifting and carrying. Either he’d shot up a few inches, or he was holding himself taller now. Growing into adulthood all at once, the way some grunts did over the course of basic. “You sure Miz Ginny’s okay, Lee?” Even his nose looked different, the rest of his face finally rising to meet it.
She’d better be. He contented himself with a nod. “Just needs some rest.”
Juju was in the parking garage with his rifle, one foot bracing the door and his gaze roving. It was dark as sin down there, even with both vehicles running and their headlights on.
“Well, we’ll be sittin all day.” Mark bent, and grabbed the last two ammo tubs. “I swear, I thought she was a goner. She kept coughin.”
Lee grunted. No use in giving the kid anything to feed the hamster inside his head with. He glanced around one final time to make sure everything was dealt with, picked up the lantern, and shouldered through the door, nodding at Juju. Traveller, excited to be on the move again, pranced and yipped. Ginny, determined, muscled her burden onto the tailgate and leaned against the truck, her ribs heaving and her cheeks blanched.
Dammit.
Steph had clambered inside, and snagged the box. “Go sit down,” she told Ginny. “For God’s sake. You’re white as a sheet.”
“I think I will.” Ginny turned, her hip bumping the tailgate as Mark’s elbow almost hit her arm. “Whoops, sorry.”
“Heavy,” Mark said, and heaved his double up. The truck groaned a little, accepting the weight with only token protest. “You go get on in the Jeep, Steph. I got this.”
“Ain’t gonna argue.” She hopped down lithely into his waiting arms, and Lee thought the boy was smart if he used that moment to attempt a kiss on her cheek. Her laughter was a bright ribbon, and the stairwell door banged shut. Traveller scrambled for Ginny, his nails clicking and scraping, and his yipping shifted as Juju yelled.
“Incoming!”
Shadows milled at the edge of headlight glare. One, two, darting across the cone of light. Lee’s entire body turned cold. He pushed Kasprak and Steph to the left, for Juju’s four-by. “Go on now. Go.”
“Traveller!” Ginny bent, scooped up the dog, and almost went over sideways as the animal wriggled in a dual ecstasy of attention and discomfort.
Lee shoved the ammo boxes further in and slammed the tailgate; buckling them down could wait for the next stop. The sound cracked, echoing among an empty forest of concrete pillars, and maybe it was the bouncing, careening reverberations that made the things halt and crane their dripping heads. Sleet-lashed, following some blind instinct to burrow and confused for a few crucial seconds by the advent of l
oud, mouthwatering prey, they froze in listening attitudes, eerily, inhumanly still.
It wouldn’t last long. The two biggest—one with a big ol’ yellow hard hat, of all things, clamped to his noggin by a too-tight throatlatch—dropped to hands and knees with a wet slapping sound. “Juju! Load up!”
Juju was already moving for the four-by’s driver-side, maybe a little bit quicker than he should have while armed. Ginny, clasping a good seventy pounds of wriggling hound, lurched drunkenly for the truck, and Traveller, protesting afresh, began to growl. Not at her, no—the hound’s nose had alerted him to the presence of danger.
Lee slammed the top canopy door and brought his rifle up, tracking the motherfucker with the hard hat. The critter zeroed in on Ginny and crept forward, palms slapping smooth concrete. The cold was all through Lee again, steadying ice. “Get in!” he called, and squeezed off a shot.
The round took Hard-Hat in the chest. Lee didn’t want a ricochet, dammit, off the damn hat or any of the pillars. The big critter went down hard, and a low grinding rose, a buzz thrum-bouncing around concrete pillars and empty painted lines.
Shit. Tiny eyegleams lit in the darkness, ringing both vehicles. “Get the fuck in!” he yelled, and shot another one.
How long had they been creeping in the dark?
“Clear!” Juju yelled, and his door slammed. Ginny was having trouble with the passenger door on the truck. Traveller almost wriggled free, the dog’s growl deepening into an I mean business sound.
He wanted to yell at her to get the fuck in, but she was doing the best she could. Lee moved up behind her, teeth clenched so he didn’t goddamn swear again, his heart pounding along. A smaller critter—female, half her face mottled and dark and one of her feet bare, the other in a thick brogan with red laces—darted forward, and the rifle spoke again.
They were going to break for him really damn soon.
He reached past Ginny, got the door, and she elbowed it open, letting out a miserably strained little cry. Lee moved out of her way, wishing he had eyes in the back of his head. Lee swept the rifle in a smooth tracking arc, Ginny clambered up behind him. He crowded close, got his back against hers, and pushed. Traveller yelped, Ginny did too, then Lee inhaled, squeezed off another shot because their weird immobility had broken and they surged forward, lolloping sideways. Juju laid on the four-by’s horn and their charge scattered, the critters shaking their heads, maybe freshly blinded by the echoes.
His legs wouldn’t move fast enough. The Jeep’s engine coughed into life and the horn blare was distracting, so he simply shut both noises out. He never remembered afterward how he got all the way in, slamming the door twice because the first time a critter’s fingers shot forward and tried to wrench it open.
“Go!” he barked, but Ginny was ahead of him. She’d scooted across the bench seat and had the key in the ignition, twisted it, and thank God she didn’t grind the starter. Lee banged the lock down on his side, and almost fell into the footwell when the truck jerked. “Shit!”
“Sorry!” Ginny yelped. The Jeep leapt forward; she got the truck into drive. She revved the engine like she’d been born driving stock cars and popped the emergency brake almost as an afterthought. Lee tipped his head back, only dimly realizing he was laying on the damn dog and half in her lap to boot, and stared up at her.
“Oh God oh God,” she kept whispering, her cheeks dead pale and her eyes narrowed. Lee got his arms and legs sorted out as the truck lurched, slewing wildly around a corner. “Sorry, oh, sorry, ouch—”
It was a good thing the parking garage was deserted. Skidding, sliding from side to side, the passenger mirror ripped and dangling as they plowed through a living wall of critters and brushed against the curved wall of the exit. Downhill, bumping and screeching, the paint job was never gonna be the same. She kept right on Juju’s bumper, it was damn miraculous she didn’t run him over when he went right through the little arm meant to keep you where the pay booth attendant wanted you while you counted out your dollars or showed your room slip.
“Sorry!” Ginny almost yelled. “Oh, God, I’m sorry!”
It was unbelievable, there was nothing to be done, his fate was entirely decided. So Lee Quartine, as usual when shit was sideways and there was nothing for it but to hold on and hope, began to laugh. He got his feet down where they belonged and held onto the dog as they smoked into a chain-biting, slop-melt hard right turn at the entrance, the truck’s front bumper less than two feet from the tattered leather cover of Juju’s useless spare tire, and hoped they’d at least make it a few blocks.
Only Need One
When they stopped, it was at another gas station about fifteen minutes east of the last, this one already plundered but thankfully—as far as they could tell—zombie-free. The wound was a ragged mess, blood welling from tooth-torn tissues. Mandy peered over Miz Frank’s shoulder, trying to hold the flashlight steady and not retch at the same time. Mike, carroty hair plastered to his sweat-drenched forehead, sagged against a display of cheap American flags and red-white-blue pinwheels, bald eagle keychains and I HEART USA mugs. He gasped when the nurse probed at his shoulder with latex-gloved fingers.
“Shit,” Miz Frank breathed. “Mike…”
“It’s bad, isn’t it.” He swallowed, hard. “I’m bit. I’m fucking bit.”
“God damn it.” Jorge, holding another flashlight, leaned in. “It’s my fault. I didn’t see the fucker.”
“He was quiet. Until he got close.” Mike’s apologetic grin was more of a rictus. Mandy’s stomach kept turning over, a dog not certain of its resting place. Carline was getting her ankle wrapped over by the wreckage of the checkout counter. The bandage around Colleen’s head glared white—she’d been clocked a good one by a flying wire shelf holding Doritos as the zombies blundered through the Marathon station looking for their next meal.
“Compress,” Miz Frank muttered, and ripped open a steri-pak of gauze. “Stop the bleeding, and then—”
“Why bother?” Mike shook his head. “I’m bit, I’m fucking bit. Leave me a gun and keep going. Jesus.”
“You’re not dead yet.” Miz Frank clapped the gauze on and began making a compression bandage. “Holly? What you got over there?”
“Head wounds are messy,” Holly answered. Chantal hugged Colleen, patting her back and rubbing in little circles, her earrings glittering. “No concussion, though. Bandaged up, and I’m wrapping Carline’s ankle.”
“Good deal.” Kasie Frank peered at Mike’s face, her lower lip trembling for a moment before it firmed. “It’s not far to Atlanta.”
“In this weather? With all that crap on the road?” Mr Mock shook his head. Sweat stood out in big clear beads on his forehead, soaked into the collar of his Superman T-shirt. “No, ma’am. Just leave me a gun and a couple cans of beans. I’ll get a car and meet you there.”
Miz Frank didn’t think much of that notion. “Mike…”
“He’s right,” Holly weighed in, ruthless and practical. “See how that feels, honey.”
Carline gingerly worked her foot into her lace-loosened boot, and put both boots flat on the floor. She swayed when she stood up, and her gaze swam to Mandy’s. Carline’s pupils were so big her eyes looked dark as Mandy’s own, and little threads of sweat-curled gingery hair stuck to her forehead. “It’s okay,” she said. “We ain’t gonna leave him here, are we?”
“I’m bit,” Mike repeated. “It’s fast. We know that. Like Hannah.”
Hannah? Mandy realized this had happened before to these people, and the sudden knowledge almost wrung her stomach inside out. She held on, grimly, but a whooshing sound started in her ears.
That was bad news. If the noise got any louder she’d probably throw up. So she began to count inside her head, up to five and back down, trying to slow her breathing too. Mama called it meditation, but Mandy thought it was a simple way of chopping the world up into manageable chunks. You couldn’t say as much, though. People wouldn’t pay for it unless you dressed it up a bi
t.
“Hannah hid her bite.” Miz Frank finished tying the bandage on with quick, efficient jerks, her dusky hands sure and deft. But her face contorted, like she tasted something super-bitter. “We don’t know how long—”
“Kasie.” The redheaded man pulled away, yanking shreds of blood-caked blue flannel up over the bandage. “It’s my own damn fault. I should have been wearing my coat.”
“Shit,” Jorge muttered, and turned away. His flashlight beam swung crazily, merged with the thin grey afternoon light coming through the cockeyed but unbroken glass door. “Oh, shit, man.”
The redheaded man winced, touching the bandage with bloodstained, blunt-nailed fingers. “Pack up and get out of here before it gets worse, okay? Please, Kasie.”
Carline limped across ancient, worn linoleum, shuffling through little bags of potato chips, scattered Slim Jims, and a drift of cigarette lighters tossed higgledy-piggledy. Most of the Hostess stuff was gone, and plenty of the cigarettes. That had probably been the first round of looting, Mandy bet. One, two, three. She lost count, had to start over again.
“Mandy?” Carline reached her. “You okay?”
“Get the kids out of here,” Mike said. “I just want my suitcase. And a gun, okay?”
Jorge snorted. “Gonna fight ’em off by your lonesome?”
“I only need one bullet, motherfucker.” Mike shifted, and the pinwheels above him glittered. One of them caressed his hair with a blunt plastic blade. “Get loaded up and go.” Before I lose my nerve, his face said, before he gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and his chin firmed.
Miz Frank glanced at Mandy. She looked ashy, and for a moment, Mandy saw an expression that had crossed her own mama’s face more than once. Unwillingness, and a dull hatred of the burdens the world kept piling on you. Girls learned that weight early, and black girls even earlier.
“Okay.” Carline took the flashlight, and tugged at Mandy’s arm. Occupied with counting, Mandy didn’t protest. “We’re gonna wait outside.”