“Hey, wake up.”
A hand gently shakes my shoulder, and I swat them away, turning over to go back to sleep. After yesterday, I could definitely use some more rest for what lies ahead. We still don’t know how infected the island might be; we could have a week’s worth of decontamination to do, or even more.
“Sam, we’re here. Get up.”
I recognize Reese’s voice, and slowly open my eyes. Reese is leaning in through my open car door, and his face is inches from mine. For a minute, we just stare at each other. His blue eyes meet mine, and he smiles easily.
My heartbeat quickens, and there’s a gentle fluttering in my stomach that makes me feel giddy. He slowly reaches out a hand, and I think he wants to touch my cheek. There’s a second of indecision, and he leans in.
“What’s taking so long?” Ryder shouts. “We don’t have all day!”
Reese drops his hand and backs away quickly, leaving me alone in the backseat of the jeep. I’m not sure how I should feel: relieved, or upset. There’s so little time to just stop and figure out your feelings or thoughts that I have no idea what to do. Should I have feelings for Reese? But what about my feelings for Ryder? Do I even have any?
Tobe appears by my side. The corners of her lips are tilted up in the barest of smiles. “Looks like you have a decision to think about in the near future. Choose wisely.”
I look up at her. “What?”
“I would think that having two hot redneck cowboys entirely devoted to you would be nice, under normal circumstances. Right now, that probably doesn’t feel so cool, does it?”
“Would it ever? No matter what happens in the future, somebody is going to get hurt. Whether it’s one of them, both, or me, somebody is going to have to pay.”
“Try not to think about that right now. Instead, focus on helping us find a working boat. It would suck to come all this way just to get stuck at the marina with no way to get to the island.”
I hop out of the jeep and follow Tobe over to where Ryder and Reese have their heads down. My ankle is sore, but usable. The two brothers are planning something, and I want to be a part of it. I want to actually contribute, and not just as an occasional zombie killer. I want to be worth the food and water I take up.
The two look up when we join them, and Reese smiles, but he seems nervous, and more than a little confused. That makes two of us buddy…I think to myself. “So, what can I do to help out a little more around here?”
“We’re gonna split up and get things done twice as fast. Two of us are gonna check the docks for keys to a working boat, and the other two are gonna spread out and check for other supplies we’ll need to sustain ourselves.”
“Like what kind of supplies?”
“Batteries, flashlights, boxes of matches, warm clothes for winter, if we can stay that long, and maybe some fishing supplies. Anything else we can find that might come in handy. We should probably build a first aid kit that at least has bandages and antiseptic cream.”
“Who’s going where?” Tobe asks, straightening a little. She’s not trembling or sobbing and, for the first time since we met, she looks stronger, healthier, and happier. She’s holding a crowbar in her hands, and she’s twisting it in anticipation.
“Tobe, I want you and Reese to search these docks for any boat that still has the keys. I know it’ll be hard to do, but the keys might be in someone’s pocket, and you’ll have to dig around for them. Be careful, and be back at the jeep in an hour or less, got it?”
Tobe leans closer and whispers to me. Reese and Ryder give us strange looks, but I just nod, and she smiles before taking off. Reese doesn’t look happy to go, but he does. With his rifle held up, he scans the area around him, looking for any signs of danger. Tobe is stuck to his side, waving her crowbar dangerously. She looks ready for a fight, but I hope they don’t find one and risk getting hurt.
Ryder looks down at me. “Well, let’s go. We’re on supply detail. Anything we can find that might be of use can go in this,” he says, handing me a duffel bag. “Remember to keep an eye out for anything that moves. You’ve still got that gun, right?”
I nod. The Glock 17 is fastened in a holster at my hip, and I have two extra magazines in my pocket. Hopefully I won’t get flustered and drop them this time. If we’re planning to survive long, we’ll need all the ammunition we can get our hands on. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
The holster feels bulky and uncomfortable on my belt, but I can’t risk going without one. After running into those three men yesterday, we have to be more careful than before. Not that anyone in their right mind would mess with Ryder.
He looks like he was born to survive the end of the world in one piece.
He’s wearing faded jeans, black combat boots, a tight-fitting black t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. There is a thigh holster for his handguns on each leg, and there’s a hunting knife in a sheath on his belt. He should look like a cliché Rambo, but he doesn’t. He just looks like a muscular hero.
He catches me admiring him, and before I look away, I swear I see a faint reddish tinge to his cheeks. “Like what you see?” he asks, playing off his obvious embarrassment.
I smile and duck my head. “What if I do? You gonna tease me about it?”
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that. I’m sexy and I know it. Believe me; I’m used to being seen as a stud.”
I laugh. While Ryder definitely has a sort of rugged, manly charm that makes him incredibly attractive to me, I don’t know if I’d consider him as actually handsome. Of course, in this day and age you’re not attractive unless you wear super-tight skinny jeans, sing annoying songs about love, and talk like an idiot.
But I’ve never understood girls’ fascination with those sissy types of guys. I’ve always preferred the kind of guy like Ryder, or Reese. Reese is a lot like his brother, just nice all the time, instead of every once in a while.
Stop thinking about both of them like that. You’re trying to survive day-to-day life, not repopulate the world.
Neither of us speaks again, and Ryder slowly opens the door to a small store at the marina. The second the door is open, the stench hits us so violently it causes me to retch. I pull my shirt up over my nose and back away from the open door. Ryder is leaning against the side of the building taking deep, even breaths.
He looks at me. “Breathe through your moth. It’ll help.”
He turns and ducks into the building. I don’t want to go, but I can’t stay out here exposed, while letting him do all the work. So I take a deep breath and run into the building after him. Even though the room is mostly dark, the cause of the stench quickly becomes apparent.
I can see the shadows of several bodies littering the floor of the building. They’re bloated beyond recognition, and they look like they’ve been decomposing for a while now. Parts of them are missing or scattered around the floor, and I try not to look at their faces. Instead, I focus on drowning out the sounds of flies buzzing everywhere, and the slippery surface I’m standing on right now.
Breathing though my mouth like Ryder suggested doesn’t help, and I find myself gasping for air. It’s so hot and stuffy in this small room that for the first time in my life, I start to feel claustrophobic. The flies swarm our faces as we pass by, and I have to stop and swat them away. Oh, god. They feast on death, and now they’re touching me!
I close my eyes, plug my nose, and cover my mouth with my free hand. I can feel the flies crawling over my head and through my hair, and I try not to scream. I free my nose and mouth and run my hands angrily through my hair. Watching the flies fall from my hair is repulsive, and I consider racing for the entrance and waiting for Ryder outside.
But he isn’t freaking out, and I can’t abandon him. So, once I’m sure the flies are all out of my hair, I take a deep breath, and jog after Ryder, who’s already at the far side of the room. He’s checking underneath some counters for anything of use, and comes away with a flashlight. He clicks it on, and part of the room instantly brightens.
I wish
it hadn’t.
The bodies are now more visible, and the degree of composition is amazing. It isn’t just blood that I’ve slipped in; it’s a mixture of blood and bodily juices. The bodies have been decomposing into a soup mixture, and it sticks to my boots.
He hands me the flashlight. “Hold this, and shine it in front of me. And stay close. I don’t wanna lose you in here.”
I step closer and shine the light around the room. There are more bodies on the floor that were hidden in the darkness of the room, and I try not to look at them. Instead, I focus on the closed door a few yards away. It probably leads to a storage room or something, and we could use the supplies.
Ryder moves closer. “Step back. There’s something moving in there.”
He puts his hand on the doorknob, and I shrink back behind him. He throws open the door, brings his rifle up, and takes aim at one of the two zombies in the storage room. They’re both kneeling on the ground, ripping strips of flesh from a recently dead body. They look up at us, but quickly return to their meal.
Ryder pulls the trigger twice, and both zombies collapse to the ground, missing the backs of their heads. I wince, and have to focus on my breathing to keep from throwing up. The smell is still terrible, and now there are fresh zombie brains splattered against the wall. I’m not sure which smells worse.
Ryder nudges my arm. “Let’s go. Just step over them, and keep the flashlight steady. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can leave this place.”
I follow Ryder closely, and step over the dead zombies on the floor. The storage room is about the size of my school’s small gym, and it’s filled with shelf after metal shelf of materials. There are boxes of supplies strewn all over the floor, and I swing the flashlight around to look closer.
“You said matches, right?”
Ryder bends down and grabs a few boxes of matches. I can’t see how many are in each box, but it looks like quite a few. He tosses them into the duffel bag and looks at the shelves again. I give him enough light to see, and he picks something else up.
It looks like rolls of packaged bandaging. He grabs yards of it, and tosses it into the duffel bag. Next are adhesive tape, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic cream, hydrogen peroxide, bottles of Tylenol, and burn ointment. He finds a case of antibacterial soap, and takes a few bars that are individually wrapped, and tosses them into the bag. There’s room for plenty more stuff, but there isn’t anything else we need that I see.
Nothing that we need, but something that I want. I’m not even sure why I grab them, but I do. My earlier encounter with Ryder and the ditch made me more than a little self-conscious, and I grab a couple packages of disposable razors and toss them into the bag when Ryder isn’t looking. It’s stupid to be worrying about such things in the middle of the apocalypse, but I can’t leave without them.
“Hey, what did Tobe whisper to you out by the jeep?”
That reminds me of another thing that we can’t leave without. Ryder waits patiently for an answer, and in response, I grab a couple boxes of feminine products. He rolls his eyes and, incredibly enough, he blushes. “Oh.”
“She’s happy she still needs them.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
I look up at him, surprised he hasn’t figured it out. “She was held captive and raped by strange men. It’s a miracle she’s not pregnant.”
“Oh, I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“Can you imagine how horrible it would be to have a baby in this world? Those creatures aren’t just attracted to blood, right? They hear movement and come running. And babies do nothing but sleep, eat, poop, and cry. It would be impossible to hide with one in our group.”
“Not to mention the pain of eventually losing your child.” I look at him, and he shrugs. “Sooner or later, I think we’re all gonna lose. If these things don’t die from starvation or disease, they might live forever. I mean, who knows? These things were supposed to be restricted to cheesy horror films.”
“I know. I never would have thought this could actually happen. And I never thought I’d be the one to survive this long. I always figured I’d go down in the first wave in this kind of situation. But I didn’t. I was careful, and I fortified my home, and gathered as many supplies as I could. Then I just planned to wait the whole thing out. Of course, you and the Warriors had to go and screw that plan up.”
He smiles. “Admit it; you’re glad we found you. You would have gotten lonely sooner or later.”
“Yes, I’m glad you two found me. If you hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have survived this journey.”
“So, how many times have I saved your life?” he asks with a smile.
“A couple,” I admit grudgingly.
He laughs. “I’d say it’s more than that. I saved you from the Warriors on that roof. I saved you from that killer dog. I saved you at the shootout with the Warriors. I saved your life at the gas station, and then again at the SUV when those thugs showed up.”
“Alright, yeah, it’s more than a couple of times. Try not to be so cocky about it next time,” I say, elbowing him in the side. His side is about the only thing I can reach considering the vast height difference between us.
“Come on. We should probably get back to the jeep and see if the others found a usable boat.”