That got Lee’s gaze off Brandon and onto her, which was only a halfway relief. His cheeks were reddened from the chill, and his knuckles were white, fingers digging into his upper arms too. If he was copying her, it was probably unconscious. He studied her for a long, tense moment, his mouth a straight line, and Ginny was about to repeat herself when he finally spoke.
“Not sure it’s stealin, at this point.”
I’m not either, but that’s not what I'm asking. “We can debate the morality of it later. For right now, do you think we should?” Help me, for God’s sake. Giving everyone a task and a reason to stick together was the best thing, right? The idea that it might be beyond her capability to keep everyone calm enough to work together was almost as frightening as seeing that second...infected.
Zombie. God.
Lee’s knuckles lost their bloodless look. His shoulders didn’t quite sag, but they relaxed a little, and a muscle in his cheek flickered before he spoke. “Ayuh,” he said, at last. “A smallish one, for the gas mileage.”
“Okay.” Fantastic. Awesome. Making progress. “That’s decided, then.”
“We found a canopy,” Mark piped up. Steph’s hands stopped scrubbing at each other, and the girl at last looked like she believed everyone had survived the last half-hour. “Get that on your truck, too, sir.”
“We’ll do that first.” Lee’s expression didn’t alter, but he dropped his hands. “French?”
“What?” Brandon hunched his shoulders.
“You’re comin with me, Juju, and Kasprak. We’re gonna get that canopy on my truck, then we’ll get the RV. I got one in mind.”
Well, wasn’t that a relief. “Great,” Ginny said. “What can Steph and I do?”
“You stay in here, and out of trouble.” The way he said it, he expected her to salute and bark aye, sir, or some variant thereof.
No you don’t, Mr Caveman. “Maybe we should stick together—”
“Safer for you in here.” Lee’s chin set, and Ginny realized he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was staring at the employee fridge, an ancient Amana number that probably contained a colony or two of semi-sentient penicillin inside by now.
Oh, you sexist pig. “Fine.” Ginny’s teeth ached, she longed to grind them. At least she wasn’t shivering anymore; irritation was dispelling the cold, loose sensation of oh God I could have died. The second zombie—where had it come from? Jesus, she hadn’t even heard it. “Then get going, will you? It’s already past noon.”
That earned her a sideways, yellow-eyed glare. Was he angry at her for keeping the damn thing occupied long enough for him to shoot it? That would be just like a man. She glared back, and he said nothing else, just nodded, turned like he was in a military parade, and stalked away. Juju hurried to follow, and Mark patting Steph’s shoulder awkwardly before following suit, and Brandon huffed out a sigh and trailed in their wake, clasping the plastic bag to his face.
“Great,” Ginny muttered at their retreating backs. “Just great.”
Steph, perhaps wisely, said nothing.
Class C Motorhome, the brochure said. Ginny propped her damp boots on the dash and began reading while the giant, wallowing thing banked cautiously out of the parking lot, following Lee’s truck with its shiny new camper. They’d even found one that matched the red-and-white Chevy. Fashionable indeed.
The brochure was full of breathless excitement. Sleeps up to 6! Cherry veneers, a new-car smell threatening to give her a headache, and absolutely abysmal mileage. Brandon, ensconced in the thronelike driver’s seat, wasn’t talking, for once. Mark, buckled into a bucket seat behind the driver, whistled every once in a while when the gigantic craft bounced a little.
“This is a nice one,” the kid said, again. Ginny glanced at the rearview—Juju and Steph were in the 4x4, and Traveller was with Lee in the truck. They were quite a convoy, moving down a road awash with slush and dotted with abandoned vehicles, not to mention the occasional crash. “We’re on a road trip for sure, now.”
Brandon grunted, a noise of grudging assent. His face was bruising up really well, his hair darkened and rising in messy unwashed chunks. The snow-filled Ziploc had vanished, and she was sure he hadn't bothered to put it in a garbage can. No, he'd probably thrown it somewhere. He wouldn't take any ibuprofen, either.
Ginny suppressed a sigh. At least there weren’t many crackups to navigate around on the freeway. There hadn’t been one they couldn’t squeak past on one side or the other yet, but she was already worried about coming across the first. “All we need are snacks and caffeine, and loud music while we cruise.”
“Ain’t never been on a road trip.” Mark fidgeted in his seat. At least he wasn't playing with its recliner capability anymore. Lee had thought to get extra coats, and Mark’s side-shredded anorak was left behind at the RV lot. This one was a black, high-grade shell over a couple Thinsulate layers, and it fit him a lot better. “Lee says we goin all the way to New York.”
Ginny nodded, flipping past a few more pages full of glossy photos—RVs speeding along mountain roads, airbrushed nuclear families enjoying the camping, a rope swing over a jewel-blue lake clustered with summer greenery. Probably alive with poison ivy, swarming with mosquitoes, and polluted as fuck. “Yeah.” Wait a second. “You mean you came along without even knowing where we were headed?”
“It’s a zombie ’pocalypse, Miss Ginny.” Just like he’d say it’s raining, or grass is green. “Get together and go, that’s what you do, right?”
Good God. “I guess.” The instinct to band together and ask no questions when you were terrified was probably the second-most powerful force in the universe, right after the attraction between the buttered side of toast and an unmopped kitchen floor. Besides, almost every zombie movie had a road-trip portion. It was a given to anyone soaking in American culture.
“New York, huh?” Brandon’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and the bruises on his face were gathering all sorts of Technicolor. Lee’s truck pulled further ahead, taillights a steady ruby glow. Keep your lights on, he’d said. Safer. “What’s there?”
“My parents.” Ginny stared at the brochure. Underneath it was the user’s manual. It made sense to be prepared. The only other option was listing more observations about the infected and their behavior, and if she did, Ginny had the notion she’d lose everything she ever thought of eating, right out the window of this brand-new road barge. She probably shouldn’t have her feet on the dash, but that was a small consideration, right?
A thunderstruck silence filled the vehicle. “Your…parents?” Brandon glanced at her. “And what else?”
“My sister. She’s pregnant.” Overdue, by now. One problem at a time, Ginny reminded herself, and turned another color-saturated, shining brochure page. Her scalp itched. A hot shower sounded heavenly. And while she was dreaming, some decent tea, a night’s sleep in her own bed, and a pony would be nice too. Another sigh caught itself halfway out of her mouth, and she bent her head a little further, her vision blurring.
Good God. Was she going to cry? That would just cap today off nicely, wouldn’t it. She sniffed as quietly as she could, trying to clear her nose.
Slush swooshed away under the tires. “Uh, so…” Brandon goosed the gas, returning his attention to the road with a start as Lee’s truck crept far to the left, threading around a clot of dead vehicles, bumper-to-bumper, leading to another discarded checkpoint. “We’re traveling across multiple zombie-infested states for a family reunion?”
“I was going to go, with or without Lee.” Did she even have to explain? A bubble of liquid heat bloomed in her chest; Ginny forced the irritation down. The blurring in her eyes retreated, promising more trouble later. “He insisted on coming with me, and on our way out of town we found Juju, and the kids.”
Brandon gave her another odd look. His face looked like it hurt, a small cut right on his cheekbone with the tissue around it swelling. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Keep your e
yes on the road, she wanted to say, but that wasn't even close to helpful, was it. Her stock of patience and diplomacy was falling like a storm barometer.
“Sounds fishy.” Brandon clutched at the wheel afresh, the RV swaying as its left-hand side leaned towards the grassy slope of the meridian. Ginny had the idea he hadn’t driven one of these before, despite his insistence. All over the US, he’d told Lee. Of course, ours was bigger.
“Oh?” Ginny closed the brochure and opened the owner’s manual. Maybe he’d get the clue and stop talking if she studied it intently enough.
No, she really didn’t expect that. It would be too much to ask for.
Brandon sank to her expectations. “I mean, you know, that hick just doesn’t seem like the normally helpful type.”
“Hey.” Mark Kasprak eyed the bulkhead behind the driver’s seat, his eyebrows up so high they were almost melding with his hairline. “Don’t you talk about Mr Quartine that way.”
“The adults are talking, kiddo.” Brandon shot Ginny a glance meant to be conspiratorial, but she busied herself with reading the table of contents. The manual was a goddamn phone book. How much of it was in different languages? Her high-school Spanish was no doubt abysmal by now.
“Mark’s right,” she informed him, quietly. “Lee’s saved my life more than once now. Saved all of us. If you don’t like him, that’s really unfortunate.” He’s closest thing to a leader we’ve got. Ginny had some hard thinking to do, but it wouldn't get done with this guy trying divide-and-conquer.
“I get that he’s King Shit of Turd Hill. If you want to stick around and get punched, okay.” Brandon scowled, his chin jutting forward. His coat was still damp from landing on the ground, and probably his jeans, too. “If he hits me, he’ll hit you sooner or later.”
I can’t afford to break a tooth, Ginny told herself, loosening her jaw with a sigh. “Will you just concentrate on driving? I thought you said you’d handled one of these before.”
It was a low blow, but at least it shut him up. Ginny bent back over the manual. Next time, she would drive, and maybe this guy could be stuck in the truck with Lee.
That thought gave her a great deal of grim amusement. When she glanced back at Mark, he was still studying what he could see of driver’s seat, and his expression was thoughtful and worried all at once.
Me too, kid. Ginny suppressed yet another sigh. Me too.
Enough to Bleed
An early winter evening found them at a low brick rest stop near the county line, its restrooms labeled BUCKS and DOES. Everyone seemed glad of the stop, Ginny and Steph hardly waiting to check the ladies’ before they pushed Juju out and shut the door. Lee wrinkled his nose at the gents’, and so did Juju, but they’d pissed in worse, and Mark didn’t complain. Brandon didn’t use the indoor facilities, taking himself around a corner instead, and Lee found himself glad.
Relieving your bladder was best done when there weren’t assholes around giving a play-by-play.
There was a small white sedan parked at the other end of the vast lot. It looked abandoned, but it didn’t hold any orange grease pencil on its windows. The tires were nice and plump too, even if bald. If its driver was now a critter, maybe it had wandered into the woods. Stay together, Lee told them after everyone had finished their bathroom break, glowering, and nobody dared do anything but nod.
Traveller bounded through slop and mud on a slope leading down to what was probably a meadow in summer but was a shallow, ice-locked pond now. The dog sprayed slushmelt everywhere, his nose full of adventure. “Might as well camp here tonight,” Juju said, his shoulder almost touching Lee’s as they watched the dog speed in a circle. For once, the hound was too busy even to warble, but that was a mercy of short duration.
Lee decided he’d never be as happy over anything as the damn dog was about sticking his snout into random corners. “Might as well,” he agreed. His jaw ached from gritting his teeth, and his neck itched. A metallic sourness of post-combat letdown filled the back of his throat. A shot of something eye-watering alcoholic would go down easy right about now, or any sort of hard work to let the sweat carry it out through his skin. Instead, he was all balled up, no place for the shakes or the leftover aggression to go.
If Juju felt the same, he didn’t show it. “What you gonna do about that French feller?”
Christ, who nominated me the guy who had to do anything? But he knew. He’d done it his own damnself. Shit flowed downhill, and he was the one with the bucket. “Thinkin about it.”
“Mark!” Ginny called, behind them. “Come help with this, will you?”
Lee’s heart thumped. All day, driving, the same thing played over and over in his head. Ginny, dancing away from the critter, like playing bulldog in the schoolyard. She probably hadn’t even thought twice before running out to distract it from Juju and Mark, making enough noise to bring an entire herd of the bastards around. Jesus Christ.
And Lee’d just hauled off and socked the fancypants bastard, too. He’d do it again, but that didn’t mean it had been the best choice in the situation,. Ginny probably didn’t think much of him for it.
Oh, hell.
“Not likely to be many of the critters around here tonight,” Juju said. Maybe he was working for diplomacy. “Lee…”
Whatever he was about to say was gonna be a problem for Lee to solve, he could just tell. “What?”
“She saved my life.” Juju sounded like he was having a difficult time with the idea. His lips were tight, and his pompom cap was pulled almost all the way down to his eyebrows. “The damn thing was quiet, we’d’a walked right out in front of it.”
“More sand than sense.” It was bravery, and that was a beautiful thing until it got a civilian killed. You learned to clap a lid on foolishness, that’s what training was for, but she was woefully underprepared. The thought of what almost happened kept dancing through Lee’s head, and there was nothing to chase it with but worry, worry, and yet more worry.
“Still…” Juju decided to let it go, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “All right. What we gonna do about him, Lee?”
Now it was we. “I know what I’d like to do.”
“Yeah, well.” Juju toed the fraying concrete at the edge of the parking lot. There was a crick down the hill to the left, not quite frozen yet, and its thin music would have been mighty soothing if everything about this goddamn situation hadn’t been so goddamn dangerous. “You just say the word, sir.”
“I ain’t in anymore, Juju.” If it needs doin, I’d do it myself, anyway.
“Shame. Seems like that’s a good way to get through this.”
And that, really, was the core of it. Survival was a goddamn merciless business. Ginny was a civilian. The kids knew when to shut their mouths and get along, but that French fellow was deadweight. Getting rid of him would be optimal.
But how would Ginny like that?
It shouldn’t have mattered how she’d like it. But there it was. He half-turned, looking over his shoulder.
Ginny pushed a few chestnut curls out of her face, standing at the hind end of Lee’s beaten-up old truck. French was loitering there, not helping with the unloading, his mouth going a mile a minute. Ginny nodded, politely smiling at something he said, and Lee’s stomach curdled.
God damn it. “Juju.”
“Huh?”
“Watch the dog?”
“All right.” Juju followed his gaze, and his eyes widened. He stuck his hands deep in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Sonofabitch got no sense at all.”
“Neither does the damn dog.” Lee’s hand fell away from his gun. It was just too tempting.
He ambled across the lot, taking his time. There was no comfortable way to do this.
“French!” he barked, as soon as the fellow was in range. “Shut your mouth and help the kids. Ginny. This way.” He grabbed her arm, and they were off.
On the far side of the brick visitor's center, a snowy hill stretched down to the shallow meandering cr
ick, the melt freeing patches of grass leaching into dead winter yellow. Ginny, her elbow caught in his left hand, dug her heels in. Lee stopped, realizing he’d all but bodily dragged her here, and that she’d been talking to him.
“Lee,” she repeated, perplexed, her arm stretched awkwardly between them. “What? What’s wrong?”
You really have no idea? “We’re havin a talk, you and me.” He could haul her a fair bit further, if he had to, decided against it.
But only just. His hand wasn't tight on her arm, but it was inescapable, or so he hoped.
“Oh?” Her eyebrows rose, a blush of chill on her pretty cheeks. “So I gather, from you dragging me over hill and dale. What the hell?”
“Listen to me.” He grabbed her other arm, too, for good measure. Just to keep her still while he got his thoughts in order, her jacket sleeves slick and cold under his palms. “Jesus Christ, woman, listen to me.”
“You’re shouting,” she observed, calmly enough, dark eyes widening and that stubborn lift to her chin coming back. “I don’t like being yelled at.”
A tiny little voice inside his head that sounded oddly like his Nonna’s was trying to tell him to calm down, but Lee was not having any of it. “Fine. Then I’ll say it slow, and quiet-like. You could have died.”
Those big dark eyes, calm and quiet. She gazed up at him, blinking owlish. “I know.”
“No, you don’t know. Nobody thinks they gonna die, Ginny.” That one simple truth, hammered home the first time he was under live fire, copper in his mouth and Peanut next to him cussing up a storm—oh, dear God, he was in bad shape if he was thinking about that. Lee shook his head, trying to get the words in some kind of reasonable order. “You are still actin like the world is the way it was, and it ain’t. You gonna get yourself hurt or God forbid kilt, and I ain’t gonna have it. I just ain’t.”