The cascadia series book.., p.11
The Cascadia Series | Book 2 | World Between, page 11
part #2 of The Cascadia Series Series
“Didn’t expect you to do that,” she says when she’s stepped clear.
“You have to—”
“Be ready for anything,” she recites. “Fight dirty. Inflict damage, not just pain.”
I nod. It suddenly feels imperative that she understand. That she be able to protect herself. Maybe because I’ve finally acknowledged how much I want her around. I close in, and she settles into a fighting stance—legs spread for balance, one foot forward, knees slightly bent, loose fists protecting her face. She deflects my first punch, then my next. When she kicks my leg, I hold up a hand. “Other hip rotates. Let me show you.”
I wait for her to resume her stance, then take her waist and spin her slightly to the left. I’ve touched her before, but not like this, with my hands spanning her hips and fingers pressed firmly to flesh. A tremor runs through Rose before she stills, only her chest rising and falling. The warmth of her skin burns my fingers, and the scents of lavender and fresh-baked bread fill my nose.
Her lip catches in her teeth. When she releases it, her bottom lip is fuller, pinker, to match her flushed cheeks. I imagine this is how she looks in bed—plump lips, heated skin, eyes this same deep blue. She must hear my swallow, as it fills my ears. They probably heard it in Washington.
I drop my hands. “Like that.”
“Okay,” she whispers.
I didn’t think this through. Didn’t take into account how she’d respond, nor how her unfocused gaze and parted lips would make me respond. I concentrate on the museum’s antique vehicles, at a loss for what comes next. The moment stretches out until Rose’s fist connects with my side. I spin to find her smiling. Slightly confused, definitely self-conscious, but smiling.
“Gotcha,” she says. “Mr. Be Ready for Anything.”
She’s defused the tension with a joke—one at my expense, no less. It’s another thing I like about her. “I’ll get you back for that, Red,” I say. “Maybe with a song, since we won’t be in here for a while. Listening to me play should be punishment enough.”
It takes Rose a moment to get my meaning. Then she claps, lifting onto tiptoes. “Really?”
I nod, hands already damp at the thought. Though I’ve practiced the guitar a good bit, and at times like what I hear, I’m still nervous before an audience. But I want to show her this piece of me—the part she helped me reclaim. That missing part might be why Rose annoyed me so much in the past: she reminded me of everything I’d cast aside. She never let the world change who she was, and I was jealous. This revelation doesn’t feel good, but it feels true.
“No laughing,” I say.
“Like I’d laugh.” She heads for the Model-T, where I keep the guitar in the backseat. I haven’t brought it to our hall for fear that someone will ask me to play. “I’ll sit up front and not look at you.”
She climbs into the front seat and closes her eyes, releasing her ponytail and shaking out her hair so that her auburn waves hang over the backrest. I sit in back with the guitar in my lap and barely suppress the impulse to wrap a curl around my finger. “Any requests?”
“Nope. Surprise me.”
I consider my options, then smile to myself and begin playing “Wave of Mutilation.” After a few seconds, she laughs. I still the strings. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”
“You’re trying to make me laugh. You know I have that song playing in my head half the time. Now it’ll never leave.”
“Okay, here’s a different one.”
I choose a song she’ll recognize. One that, if she wonders if the lyrics are for her, she’ll be right. When I begin to sing “Head On,” she claps twice and then quiets. The song is meant to be loud, but I practiced it late at night so often that it became soft in my mind. And I sing it that way, like a ballad.
I mess up at the beginning, but halfway in, my critical brain quiets. I’m sixteen again, playing quietly because Dad doesn’t approve. But I don’t care. Fuck his approval. I like that kid. For the first time in years, I feel like we’re the same person.
A few times, I hear Rose sing along. When the last notes evaporate, she lets out an enormous sigh. “Oh, thank God you don’t suck,” she says in a relieved rush. “Before you started, I was trying to think of how I could encourage you without telling you how bad it was.” She grins over her shoulder, eyes bright. “You more than don’t suck. That was amazing.”
“Let’s save amazing for something I don’t mess up,” I say, though a ripple of pleasure runs through me. “It was decent.”
“Don’t tell me what to think, jerk.” Rose sticks out her tongue and then faces forward again. “Play something else.”
“All right.” I strum a few chords. “I heard you singing. You have a nice voice.”
“I can carry a tune, but I can’t hit the high notes anymore. Though that doesn’t stop me from trying, as everyone whose eardrums I’ve damaged during karaoke can attest.” She wiggles in her seat. “More, please.”
I oblige. And when we leave for our hall, I bring the guitar with me.
13
CRAIG
No one was as surprised as me to find my name on guard duty for today, and I reach my assigned gate before sunrise to find Troy leaning against the fence. “Early enough for ya, Cherry? I asked for it special. My favorite time of day is before the morons wake up. ’Course, it was better when I had coffee to keep me from killing all the morons when they do wake up.”
“This was you? I figured it was a mistake.” I cover my yawn. There goes fixing said mistake and crawling back into my cot. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to be lonely.”
“Funny,” I say.
Tom and Francis appear on the path, talking in low voices. Great. Not only am I on guard, but I’m on guard with three of the most masculine men in Oregon. When the two reach us, neither acts surprised at my presence, which makes me feel a little better.
The kid on the east gate swings the iron bars open. He’s not really a kid, but I can’t quite shake the feeling that our lives are in the hands of people who’d rather be at a kegger. Unnerving though it may be, I’m sure any one of them would be a better choice to guard the street in my stead.
We step into the large side parking lot. It’s unfenced, though its perimeter is lined with sheet metal-reinforced vehicles. Our job is to stand in a pickup on the avenue, watching and listening for anything that portends our deaths. Two men wait in the truck’s bed for us to relieve them, and a man and a woman appear from their inspection of the area as we arrive.
“How’s it going?” one of the men asks. He steps aside so Troy can jump up, then lifts his backpack. “Quiet last night.”
“Quiet’s good,” Troy says.
The other guy grunts in agreement. He’s on the smaller side and wiry, but he projects a toughness I never could. “Name’s Austin.”
“Javier,” the other says.
There are nods and introductions all around, though Tom hesitates before introducing himself, then stares intently at Javier. The two men join the others on the ground and head for the gate while we climb into the truck.
“They just did a sweep,” Troy says. “We’re good for a while.”
Almost a block ahead, the street is empty but for Gate 13-East. Beyond that, I can just make out the shadowy heads of Lexers roaming the street. If anything broke through the gate, we’d have more than enough time to get inside the fairgrounds. But try telling that to my nerves.
“Javier.” Tom blows out a long breath. “Shit.”
“What about him?” Francis asks.
“Maybe a month before we came here, we stopped at a house on our way home from a food run. A woman was there with her kid. Said her husband Javier had gone out for supplies, and she wouldn’t leave with us. We gave her some food. She showed up weeks later, with her son, but we didn’t get to them before the zombies did.”
The four of us look toward the fairgrounds entrance, where Javier has disappeared inside. “Are you gonna ask if it’s him?” Troy asks.
“How can I not?” Tom turns away, shadows not quite camouflaging the sheen in his eyes. “I had to finish off his kid, Mateo. Three years old.”
“Christ,” Francis says.
“Don’t think I’ll tell him that part.” Quiet murmurs of agreement follow Tom’s hoarse words. After a minute in which he composes himself, he says, “Look at the trash.”
We follow his gaze to the rear of the farthest side lot, where large mounds of boxes and cans reflect the gray-blue of the sky. Our garbage. We make a lot of it, considering all our food is packaged, and we can’t cart it farther away until the swarm leaves. Small dark shapes race from the mounds to under the cars and then scurry back again.
“Rats,” Troy says. “At least they’re in the garbage heap and not in the food.”
“If we get enough of them, they will be,” Francis says. “Remember that place south of Oakland?”
“It was crawling with rats,” Troy tells Tom and me, then lets out a low whistle. “Thousands of ‘em. Looked like the ground was moving.”
I’m grateful I wasn’t treated to that experience and hope that I won’t be in the future. “If the zombies ever move, maybe we need to find rat poison.”
Troy nods. “Good idea. Someone remember to tell Barry.”
My nerves are calming, though I’m not sorry when Troy and Francis volunteer for the first perimeter check. “I’ll ask Rose to talk to Javier with me,” Tom says once they’re gone. He leans against the pickup’s cab, his slumped shoulders silhouetted against the brightening sky.
I’m surprised it’s affecting him this much, then realize I shouldn’t be. Rose likes him, and though she appreciates good looks as much as anyone, she’s turned off by bad personality no matter the packaging.
An increasing hum comes from a couple blocks down. I feel for my gun to make sure it hasn’t magically disappeared, then watch in that direction. Sometimes I can’t believe this is real life, or that I made it five hundred miles to Rose and Mitch in the midst of it. This could be a fevered dream, a parting gift from my brain, as I starve to death in my Oakland condo.
“He reminded me of my son. Jeremy.” Tom’s words cut through my thoughts. He’s turned the same direction as me, though he doesn’t glance my way. “That kid, Mateo. I had to do it to Jeremy, too. He was infected and killed my wife. I’m sure Rose told you.”
“She did. I’m really sorry.”
“I wasn’t the best father…before. Took after my own father in a lot of ways. I’m not sure I would’ve changed without Rose’s help.”
I don’t know how to respond, but Tom doesn’t seem to want anything, not even sympathy. It’s as if he’s giving me a rundown. Being interviewed. His fingers tap the roof of the cab, then scratch at his cheek, and it hits me that he’s nervous. About me. If this weren’t so serious a conversation, I would laugh.
“Her friendship means a lot to me,” he continues.
“Pretty sure she feels the same.”
Tom exhales, and I don’t miss his quick smile. “I hear you used to play drums.”
“Yup. The perfect instrument for the zombie apocalypse.”
Tom chuckles, meeting my eyes. “True. But maybe we’ll get to play together one day. Rose also says you know more about music than anyone she’s ever met, even Jesse and me. She said we should talk about it sometime.”
I think this is an overture of friendship. Tom shrugs the way I would’ve, as though already apologizing for the imposition. It makes it easy for me to say, “That’d be cool.”
He nods as Troy and Francis approach. Shafts of golden light peek over low buildings to the east, and we do our best to watch in that direction without burning our retinas.
“Looks fine,” Troy says. “It’d look even better if the Lexers would get the hell out of here. If I can’t leave for good, at least I’d be able to go on a run for some ammo.”
“Are you ever not looking for ammo?” I ask. Francis shakes his head, answering for Troy.
“Why can’t you leave?” Tom asks.
“I was convinced, by someone who shall remain nameless, that it’d be a stupid move. At least until it’s stupider to stay.” Troy pats his gut. “And I do enjoy eating on the regular, as the kids say.”
“It’s not bad,” Francis says. “There’s a lot of white people, but they’re all right so far.”
I crack up, and Tom laughs loud enough that I fear the zombies might break in. “Try growing up here,” he says. “Some people thought I was Italian or Greek, but I got more than a few comments about being half A-rab.” He pronounces it the way a racist asshole would. “At least until I could kick the shit out of them.”
Francis grins. “I hear that.”
I wish I’d been able to take down a few of my bullies. My response was more of the take-your-lumps-and-nurse-your-wounds type.
“It’s not a bad place, though,” Tom says. “Right now everyone’s more concerned with staying alive, but if you need me to jump in, you know where to find me.”
Troy punches Francis’s arm. “I may be a cracker, but I’ve got your six. Craig, too.”
“Hey,” I say. “I may not look it, but my mom was half Mexican. You’re the only full-bred cracker here.”
“Hablas Español?” Troy asks. “I minored in college.”
I shake my head. “Only what I remember from high school. My dad didn’t like when my mom spoke Spanish, so she didn’t. You probably know more than I do.”
“My mother wasn’t allowed to speak Arabic,” Tom says. “She did when my father wasn’t around, but I’ve forgotten most of it.”
There’s a flash of understanding in his eyes, in the way his shoulders tighten. I’m sure his previous admission that he took after his dad wasn’t easy, especially with the dislike plain on his face. No matter how much I’ve disliked myself, at least I never emulated my father, whom I disliked even more.
Francis laughs his deep, mellow laugh, lightly punching Troy’s shoulder. “You know the world’s ended when a Spanish-speaking cracker from Texas has my back.”
Troy grins. “Francis, you’d better—”
A low rumble comes from the west. We spin in that direction as the rumble turns to thunder, though the sky is a clear blue. The piercing wail of a fire truck’s siren comes next, loud at first though lessening as it moves away. At our end of the avenue, 13-East’s metal rattles on its posts, and the sea of Lexers in the street beyond begins to shift our way.
My hand goes for my pistol. My spike is on my belt, but this is a time, as Troy says, when it’s Gun and Run. Though my heart has picked up and my lungs are tight, I feel no more panicked than the others appear. How could you not be alarmed when several thousand zombies are moving en masse?
The surge continues, pushing forward until the bodies are packed so tightly that the gate stops rattling. At first, I think I’m imagining the increasing space between metal panels, but the half inch turns to one inch. Two inches. Then three. With only days to prepare for the swarm, it’s possible the gates aren’t as sturdy as they could be—or maybe no gate could take this amount of pressure. When the gap hits four inches, the first zombie arms reach through, ragged fingers blindly clawing at air. Five inches. Six.
Okay, now panic is rising.
“Fuck this,” Francis says. “Let’s get inside.”
Troy lifts his gun, eyes on the bending metal. “Seconded.”
Another siren comes from the east, howling over hisses, groans, and growls. Maybe it’ll pull them away from the gate, maybe it won’t, but we’re not sticking around to find out. I hit the asphalt just behind Tom and force myself not to run ahead. But when the crash of metal hitting ground echoes from behind, we all begin to sprint.
I look over my shoulder when we reach the fence. Gate 13-East hangs open, and the first fifty of what could be thousands of bodies are through. Troy pounds on the iron bars of the fairgrounds’ east gate. “Open up!”
The gate doesn’t budge. Francis reaches through and rips aside the cloth coverings. No one is there, likely because they’ve headed west toward the first siren. They made sure to lock up, though, and the razor wire atop the bars discourages any attempt to climb.
We jog to where the iron fence becomes chain-link threaded with black privacy strips. The strips don’t make climbing easy, but thousands of zombies are all the impetus I need to fly over top. The others thump down beside me, and we make our way toward the Events Center’s rear service entrance, where three guards stand at the metal doors.
Deb, a sturdy woman with cropped hair, holds a rifle at the ready. “Gate came down?” she asks, not seeming half as unnerved as I feel. We nod, still panting. “Let’s get inside.”
We spill into the Events Center. The side hall is full of people dressed in pajamas with sleep-creased faces and panicked expressions. A little boy leans against the wall, face streaked with tears, and I stop to help until a woman scoops him into her arms.
Ethan steps into my path outside the infirmary. “Craig, what’s happening?”
“Someone’s moving the swarm, but a bunch broke through 13-East.”
“Shit. Where’s Jess? Do you know?”
I shake my head. “I’m on my way to Rose. She’ll know.”
We wade through the mob of people, all of whom have been ordered to stay put and are doing nothing of the sort, then leave the front lobby through a set of glass doors. Whatever the hysteria inside, no one follows, and their noises are muffled by the increasingly loud drone of the undead.
Dozens of soldiers and civilians cross the lot to take posts along the fences. With six blocks’ worth of fence to cover on the north side alone, we might need more than that. Outside our Expo Hall, Rose stands by her breakfast truck with Mitch, Clara, Holly, and Sam. Rose’s hand rests on her knife sheath, shoulders tensed, while the others have the dazed look of people thrust from sleep into a real-life nightmare.
“What’s going on?” Rose asks.
Tom yells an explanation over the discordant hisses and moans from the avenue. The north fence clangs, but the Lexers can’t see in as long as the coverings hold. If they can’t see in, and we stay quiet, they won’t know we’re here.
