Chasing Colorado: (The Zombie Zovels #2) (13 page)

“I dunno, I got distracted thinking you'd left me. And killing one with a knife is harder than it looks.”

“Not if you get 'em in the right spot.”

“Where were you? You just vanished.”

“I was over there, and I thought you were following me, then I turn around and find a deadbie on my ass and you've gone. I thought you'd gone back on your own.”

“No. I just lost track of you.”

“Well keep up this time.” he said.

I followed him back the way he had walked, walking around the other deadbie he had killed. In front, there was a tall wooden building.

“What is this place?” I asked as he opened the large door.

“Dunno, some barn, but it's got a load of goodies inside.”

“Goodies? Please tell me that's not another word for deadbies?”

Inside the barn was dark but a few small, open windows on the balcony above let a little light in. He closed the door behind me. I saw a pitchfork leaning against a hay bale, then I looked to my right and saw a load more hand-held instruments for cutting wheat and other various farming items, but all I really saw was a stockpile of weapons. Curved blades hung on the wall, a rake leaning against it, more pitchforks, and rope neatly wound up and hooked on the wall.

“What is this place?”

“There must be a farm nearby.”

“A farm? We're in the middle of the woods, I didn't see any farm. What are we doing in here?”

Drew made a clicking sound with his tongue and beckoned me over to the ladder.

“You want me to climb up the ladder?” I asked confused.

“No I want you to dance for me.” he replied sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes at him and climbed up the ladder. Then he climbed up behind me and I sat down on the balcony which overlooked the ground below and the door. Drew stayed by the small window watching outside.

“What are we doing in here? We need to be coming up with a plan?”

“A plan?”

“Yes, what we're going to do? The others are out there somewhere, and for all we know those men might have taken them hostage... or the deadbies might have...” I couldn't even think about it.

The image of Luke's gushing throat was still making me nauseous and I hadn't even seen it happen, my over active imagination was too real sometimes.

“I can't believe Luke's gone. One minute we were all laughing and joking, the next Luke's dead and we're running for our lives. Who were those men?”

He lit a cigarette, not in any rush to answer me.

“The world is full of men like that, they take what they want and kill who they please, and that's how they survive.”

“That's not surviving, that's just murder.”

“Like it matters anymore. There ain't no laws no more telling you right from wrong. People do what they want now.”

I looked over at him. “Drew, what are we going to do? All our stuff is back at the camp.”

The only things we had on us were the clothes we were currently wearing, Drew's crossbow, Luke's knife, and various other tools that I considered weapons. We had no food, no map, no water... nothing.

“I'll go back when it's dark.” he said, taking a drag.

“It's already dark. What if it's too late and they've already caught another one of us and killed...” I stopped mid-sentence, hoping I was wrong and they had got away safely.

“Life's a bitch sometimes.”

“That's your answer.”

“That's all I got. People die.” he said, tapping his cigarette out the window.

“But you could stop it. We could stop it.”

“The best thing we can do is wait until nightfall, then I'll go back and see if our bags are still there.”

“Or you might get your throat cut too, with no one to watch your back.”

“Look, you're with me right now and while you're with me you're gonna do as I say.”

I let out a laugh.

“What's so funny?” he said deadpan.

“I think it's funny you think you can boss me around and tell me what to do.”

“I ain't taking you back with me and that's final. I ain't gonna risk you getting caught as well. We do it my way.”

I shook my head, lifted up my knees and hugged my legs.

After a few awkward minutes of silence, he climbed back down the ladder.

“Where are you going now?”

He didn't answer, instead, he picked up a few tools and a pitchfork, and walked back to the ladder, then he raised the pitchfork above his head.

“What are you doing?” I asked, yawning.

“Duck!” he said.

“What?” But before I got a reply the pitchfork came flying up onto the balcony, soon followed by more tools.

I collected the items he threw up and made a pile next to the wall, then when he was happy with the number of accumulated weapons he climbed back up the ladder.

“So you gonna tell me what we're gonna do with these?” I asked, picking up the pitchfork, liking it more than the knife... I couldn't do any worse with it.

“I'm not doing anything with them. You are.”

“Huh?”

He ignored me and walked to the other end of the balcony.

“You should be safe up here while I'm gone.”

“Drew. No. I'm coming with you.”

He let out a sigh and sat down on a small hay bale.

“You should rest.”

“No, I'm not that dumb, the second I close my eyes you'll disappear.”

“No, I'll wait for you to wake up.”

I sat down on the floor with my back against the wall, watching him.

“I'm fine.” I insisted, even though my eyes felt heavy.

“No, you're not.”

I turned away from his gaze and picked up a piece of straw and twirled it between my fingers.

“I never wanted to go. This journey was a waste of time, and now Luke's dead, possibly the others as well. And it was all for nothing.”

“Lane didn't seem to think so.”

“Well, Lane's wrong.” I muttered.

I yawned again, covering my mouth, and I told myself my watery eyes were from all the yawning, not the fact that everyone could be dead and it was because of me. I closed my eyes and used my sleeve to rub the tears away. I was turning into a soppy mess. Whatever this virus was doing to me it was playing havoc with my hormones. I felt grouchy, sad, and extremely anxious.

Drew stood up abruptly and went over to the window.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, just a deadbie.”

“Just one?”

“Yeah.”
I relaxed a little and rested my head on my knees.
I'll just rest my eyes for a minute.
I thought.

Then we'll go back together.

“Hey, Alex?”

“Hmm.” I tried to lift my head but it suddenly felt like dead weight. I lifted it and saw Drew crouching in front of me with his lighter flicked on. I was suddenly aware the barn was much darker than before, then I realized my neck was sore from falling asleep with my forehead resting on my knees.

“How long was I out for?”

“A while.” he said, flicking the lighter off and putting it in my hand.

I wiped my eyes and tried to wake myself up.

“Are you ready to go?” I asked.

“Yes, but you're still not coming.”

“I'm not staying!”

“Yeah, you are! Even if I have to tie you up. So which is it going to be?”

“Drew, no!”

“It will be quicker if I go on my own, you'll only slow me down.”

“And what if you get lost? It's dark out there.”

“That's the idea, they won't see me coming.”

“No, but they might hear you.”

“No one hears me.”

“Okay, but what if you
do
get lost?”

“I won't.”

“What if you run into that army of zombies again?”

“Deadbies?”

“Whatever, same thing.”

“They won't even know I'm there.”

“What if those men catch you?”

“They won't.”

“What if you don't come back?”

“Did you have this conversation with Lane every time he went for a piss?”

“No... I always went with him.”

“Alex, I'm coming back.”

I wanted to believe him, but in all honesty, I didn't know him very well, and I wouldn't be surprised if I never saw him again.

“You're not coming back, are you?”

“What?”

“It's okay, I'll understand if you don't.”

He grunted a laugh and a moment later he placed what felt like a pocket knife in my hand.

“I already have a knife, Luke's knife, remember?”

“I know, but this one belonged to my dad when he was little, and then it was given to me. I never go anywhere without this pocket knife... and
I will come back for it
, that's a promise.”

I closed my fingers around the pocket knife.

“Okay?” he said.

“Okay.” I repeated, finally giving into his request to stay behind.

I stood up and watched him as he started to climb down the ladder, but he stopped and looked back over the top of the balcony.

“I'll know if you follow me.”

“I know.”

“You can stay hidden over there, and if anything tries to climb up the ladder you can use those weapons.”

“You mean anything not dead?”

Deadbies couldn't climb ladders which only left humans. I think I could manage to prong someone in the face if they climbed up the ladder.

The lower half of the barn was dark and I couldn't see Drew anymore, I only heard the door creak when he opened it to leave. I crawled further along the balcony and slouched against the wall. Of all the things I thought we'd come into contact with on this journey, a group of murdering psychos was not one of them. My thoughts drifted to Lane. I was worried about him, which was nothing new, worrying about Lane was second nature to me now. But I was also worried about Josh, but he was trained in survival and I knew he was a fighter, he would be okay, and so would Lane. And as for the others, I only hoped they had gotten away as well. I told myself this over and over until my eyelids felt heavy and I thought I might fall asleep again, but my ears started playing tricks on me. Every little noise-the trees rustling in the wind, a twig snapping in the distance, had me peeking out the tiny window, not that I could see much, outside was a sea of darkness. Even my own stomach grumbling made me jump. I kept the pitchfork across my lap and listened to the crickets. My throat started to feel sore again, so I unwrapped another soother. My stomach was also starting to hurt. I couldn't tell if it was from being hungry and all that traveling on foot had worked up an appetite, or whether it was another side effect. I had no idea what the time was, or how long Drew had been gone. I had taken off my watch to shower that first day back after I had been bitten, and left it on the bench while I showered, it had disappeared along with my other bloodstained clothes. I didn't fuss over it, a missing watch wasn't top of my priority list. I calculated it would take Drew an hour and a half to get there, but possibly longer because it was dark. Twenty minutes should be enough time to have a quick look around, then add another hour and a half for the trek back to this place, (praying he finds it), and that's if everything went to plan.

Day 4

My appetite's back again, and I'm soooo hungry, the phrase I could eat a horse is spot on.

Something nudged my leg and considering how out of it I was, I was as surprised as he was when I tried to plunge the pitchfork into him. But lucky for us, Drew's reflexes were quicker than mine and he dodged my attack.

I lowered the pitchfork, catching my breath.

“I nearly pronged you.”

“Pronged me? That's a new one.” he said, taking the pitchfork from me and leaning it up against the wall.

“What happened? Wait... what time is it?” I asked, already hearing the familiar sounds of the early birds at dawn, and a slither of light was coming through the window.

“Early.” he replied, squatting down in front of me, and placing his crossbow beside me.

“Whose bag is that?” I asked, having spotted the bag slung over his shoulder.

“Dunno,”

“It looks like Josh's bag.” I said, having another look.

“Let's hope your boyfriend has something useful in his bag.”

“He's not boyfriend.”

“Uh-huh.”

He opened it and started handing me things.

Clean T-shirts, socks, deodorant, a toothbrush.

“Did you see anything else while you were there?”

“No, just a graveyard of deadbies, this is all I could find, I think they took everything else.”

Band-Aids, shower gel, a box of matches.
I listed the things as he passed them to me.

“And?”

“And what?”

He placed two more things into my hands, a wallet and a flashlight.

“And what else have you been doing that took all night?”

“I was out looking for the rest of our group.”

“So the fact that you just told me you were out looking for them means they got away, right?”

“Well, I didn't find any dead bodies that I recognized, so... and Luke's body is still... where...” he trailed off.

“Water bottle, three packs of slushie-shit, a spoon, a protein bar, rather questionable underwear,” Drew laughed, holding up a pair of floral boxer briefs. “And, one toilet roll, a handful of batteries for the flashlight, and a
Mars
bar.”

“
Mars
bar, he kept that quiet. This stuff is better than nothing,” I said, distracted, looking through Josh's wallet, being nosy.

I switched the flashlight on for a better look inside his wallet and found a family photo tucked in the back. I looked at each of the faces, his mother was a tall, brunette, and his father was a lot shorter than I would have imagined, shorter than his mother, nearly bald, and rather round. Then there was Josh, looking a lot younger than he does now, maybe fifteen, maybe younger, he had a little more weight on him, with pudgy cheeks, and a wide grin I was familiar with. There was one more person in the picture, another boy, he looked younger than Josh but was taller than him, with a lighter shade of brown hair, and a skinny frame. I stared at the boy's eyes, not believing what I was seeing.

“Alex?”

The sound of Drew's voice made me jump and I dropped the flashlight.

“What is it?” he asked, taking the photo from me, squinting to get a better look in the dim light.

I picked it back out of his hand and placed it back in Josh's wallet, then I packed all the stuff away again, leaving out one pack of mush.

“You hungry?” I asked him.

“God, no, I'd rather eat rabbit droppings than the shit that comes in those packets.”

“You know they say you've gotta try everything once before you die.” Then we both realized what I had said without thinking about it.

“Still no. We need to start moving, you can eat on the way.”

He picked up the pitchfork. “You bringing this?” he asked.

“Err... yeah, you've seen what I'm like with the knife.”

Drew leaned over the balcony and speared the pitchfork into a hay bale. Then he picked up his crossbow and climbed down the ladder.

I quickly shoved the packet of food in the bag and put it on my back and climbed down after him. By the time I had made it down and grabbed my newly acquired weapon, Drew was already waiting outside for me.

“What now?” I asked, using the pitchfork more as a walking stick than a weapon as it was heavy.

He didn't answer and just pointed in the direction he wanted to walk. The sun was starting to spill through the trees as we trekked through the woods. I had no idea where we were, or where we were heading, if Drew was to up and leave me now, I would be completely lost.

I somehow managed to hold onto the pitchfork while pulling Josh's bag around to get into it.

I grabbed the spoon and the packet of mush. My insides were growling something wicked. I was actually worried it might bring out my inner-zombie, craving anything I could get my hands on. I ripped open the packet, and looked at the spoon, wondering how we were going to do this. I sort of felt bad for even considering eating it, when I was the one dying, and Drew was the healthy one that needed the food more than me,
but
I was that hungry so I wasn't thinking straight. I looked up to see where he was, he was cautiously walking in front of me, watching the trees.

“So how we gonna do this?”

He didn't answer me or turn around to look at me.

“Okay, well, I think you should eat first and then I'll finish off the scraps, if you leave me, like, four mouthfuls that should be enough.”

Oh, who was I kidding, I was starving! “Maybe six, if you're feeling generous toward the dying girl.”

“I said you can have it. I ain't eatin' that shit.”

“What
will
you eat?”

Instead of answering me, he dashed off through the trees, and I was left dawdling at a snail's pace, eating my mush dinner with the spoon-pretending I was enjoying a McFlurry. Eating while holding a pitchfork was harder than I thought it would be, I dropped it a few times.

Drew was always in my line of sight, I wasn't quite sure what he was up to, I assumed if I slowed him down too much he would just leave me, but then I remembered I still had his father's pocket knife in my pocket, so he would have to come back to me at some point.

When I had just about finished the
whole
packet, not something I would have ever down before, I was all about rationing before, but I was that hungry and I needed the energy, Drew started heading back to me. I spotted something dangling from his hand, as he got nearer I realized it was a dead rabbit.

I turned my face up in disgust. I wasn't against killing animals for a good reason, like, to put food on the table, but I didn't like the idea of what he was going to have to do to it before he could cook it and eat it.

“I found dinner.” he said, holding it up in the air.

“Yummy.” I said, trying not to pull a face.

“This is better for you than that crap in the packet, and tastier.”

“I think I'll stick to the pre-packed stuff.”

He took a step toward me and I stepped back out of the way not wanting him to get dead rabbit on me.

Then he took another step toward me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He held up the rabbit waiting for me to connect the dots.

“No!” I backed off, half-laughing. “You're not putting that in Josh's bag.”

“Why not?”

“'Cause it's gross, that's why. If you're not planning on eating it right away then you can carry it.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “You afraid of a little rabbit blood?”

“No, I just don't want rabbit disease or any disgusting fleas crawling around in the bag, and don't those things leak pee when they're dead?”

“We're walking around with deadbies and you're worried about a little rabbit piss?”

“Well... yeah, and maybe I don't want rabbit blood on the clean clothes, you know, just in case Josh wants them back.”

Drew shook his head in amusement and took another step toward me, and I stepped back. He tilted his head and looked down at the knife I had attached to my waist belt, then he leaned his crossbow next to his leg and reached over and slipped the knife out without asking.

“Wait.. didn't you have your own knife before?” I asked, remembering I had seen him with one before, but then I noticed he had an empty knife holder attached to his pants.

“Yup, stabbed one of those guys with it back at the camp during that deadbie rampage. I got knocked down and had to leave it. I did check when I went back to see if it was still lodged in the guy's gut, but it was gone.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him stab the rabbit in the leg.

He didn't answer and I watched as he hooked the rabbit onto his belt loop and poked one of the rabbit's legs through the hole he had made in the other leg so he could hook it on.

Then he handed the knife back to me and picked up his crossbow, and started walking again.

“You need to eat something now.” I said, walking behind him.

“I'm fine.”

“Drew, please, at least drink something.”

He stopped and looked back at me.

“I haven't drank anything from the bottle yet, it's still okay to drink from.”

“No, I'm good.”

“Drew-”

“I said I'm good, you drink what you want, I'll find something else.”

“Like what? Please tell me you don't drink your own pee?”

He laughed and turned his back on me.

“I'll find something.” he said.

After another five minutes of me trying to convince him to have a drink, he finally gave in and had a couple of mouthfuls and said I could have the rest. I stopped to tip a little into my hand and drank it that way, I wasn't about to drain the only water we had left, and he might want some more later.

We found our way back to the road, but stayed just inside the trees, and carried on walking.

The morning air was getting warmer and the sun was getting higher in the sky. We walked for a solid two hours, all the while the landscape was getting rockier and the road in front was headed toward what looked like a mountain.

“Do we have to climb that?” I asked.

“That's the way the road goes.”

I think my expression said it all.

“It's not that high, that's a little one compared to what's ahead.”

“What is ahead? Do you even know where you're going?”

“This is the way to Colorado, isn't that where you wanted to go?”

“Yes, but that was before. Now I just want to find the others. Are you not worried about your friends?”

“No.”

“No?”

“They know the way home. My guess is they're probably somewhere in that direction.” He loosely pointed to the right.

“What's in that direction?”

“Didn't you just hear me? I said
home
is in that direction. They wouldn't go through the desert if they didn't need to, but that was the way Luke mapped out as the road went that way. But I'm with you right now and we're going this way.”

I slowed down until my feet refused to go any further.

“I'm not asking you to stay and look after me. I don't
need
you.”

“You don't need me? If it wasn't for me you would have got your throat slit just like your friend back there.”

“Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, 'cause then you could have gone
home
, back to wherever it is you come from, and I'd be dead, which is what I wanted from the moment I found out I had been bitten. I don't wanna be one of
them
.”

He sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

“Here, you should take this and go.” I said, slipping the bag off my shoulders.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Eat the food when you're hungry, and there's a change of clothes.”

“You can keep it. If I want anything I'll just ask.” he said, nodding his head to keep walking.

And that was the end of the conversation. We carried on walking with Drew leading the way. He didn't say much else to me. Every now and then he would disappear into the trees having heard something, but he'd always come back.

“Why are we going this way? I thought you said
home
was that way, don't you want to walk that way?”

I wasn't sure if he had heard me or not. He grunted, but I wasn't sure if that was my response.

“Drew?”

“I heard ya,” he replied.

“Well,”

“Well, what?”

“Where are we going?”

“God, woman, you ask a lot of questions.”

“And you never answer half of them. Grunting is not an answer.”