Glory (Book 4) (10 page)

"What? You have it?" he screamed. "Give it to me!"

She did, bringing it straight down into Scooter's face.

*

Scooter woke up, yelling. He grabbed at his face and felt for the axe that he expected to be sticking out of it. He pressed against his eyes, against his nose, making sure that they were still there.

"Fuck," he gasped when he realized that he was okay.

He turned over and grabbed for his axe at the side of the bed. It was still there. He sat up and placed it in his lap.

"What the fuck was that?"

He looked around. No one else was in the room. No Marianne. No little girl.

A dream
,
he told himself
.
It was just a dream.

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself. Then he looked over at the door. It was closed.

He turned to look at the window. The moonlight still shone through it. It would be a few more hours before morning, but he knew that he wasn't going to be able to get any more sleep. Not tonight.

Fuck.

He pressed his back into the wall and squeezed the axe once more. He pictured Marianne slamming it into his fac
e.
Her naked on the bed. After they had had sex.

And he wondered what it all meant.

Day 12

Chapter 1

John woke up with the sun shining brightly through his window. His wife was sleeping beside him. The side of her face pressed against her pillow. Her breathing soft.

He raised his head, unsure of where he was. The blanket pulled over top of him wasn't familiar. Nor was the wallpaper and paintings on the wall. He couldn't remember ever having seen the television set before. There was a small table to the side of it, covered with empty boxes and cans.

He looked back at his wife and thought of waking her. Yet she looked too peaceful to be disturbed.

Where was he?

He spotted a large mirror. A telephone. An alarm clock radio that didn't show the time. A pen and pad with games of tic-tac-toe scratched across it.

None of it was familiar.

He was at least able to figure out that he was in a hotel room
.
But why would he be in a hotel
?
The last time he had spent the night in a hotel was when he and his family had gone on vacation all those years ago.

His family.

Their faces passed quickly through his mind. Images of their upbringing. Memories.

Then it all came back to him
.
His family was probably dead. And, if not, there was no way that they were going to be able to contact them. People had changed. The world had changed. Now they were looking for survivors.

He placed his hand on Alice's shoulder. He still didn't want to wake her, but it was too difficult for him to be on his own at the moment
.
Too overwhelming.

"Alice," he said. "Honey."

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Is everything okay?" she asked, her voice sleepy.

John didn't answer straight away. He was no longer sure how much he wanted to tell her.  He didn't want to burden her with it. He also didn't want to admit that he had forgotten where they were.

"It's nothing," he said. "Sorry I woke you."

Alice pushed herself onto her elbow. "What is it, John?"

"Nothing, really."

His wife didn't believe him. She pushed herself up further. "No, there's something wrong. I can tell."

"I…" He broke his gaze and looked back around the room. "I was just thinking."

"Of?"

"Of everything." Alice waited for him to continued, but he didn't want to say any more about it. He leaned his back against the headboard. "Did you have a good sleep?"

"John…"

"Does that mean 'yes'?"

His wife huffed. "Yes, I had a good sleep. You?"

"It was fine." He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

She smiled. "Are the others awake?"

"I don't know. I just woke up. I haven't heard anyone else, though."

"Should we wake them?"

"In a little while."

He put his arm around his wife and pulled her into him. She nestled her head against his shoulder. Their hands locked.

They sat like that for a while. Not speaking. Listening to the sounds of their breathing.

Until there was a knock at their door.

Chapter 2

John got out of bed and hobbled over to the door. His legs were tired this morning
.
In pain
.
"Hello?"

"Hello," came the reply. "It's Scooter."

John opened the door.

The young man stood in front of him, axe in hand. His eyes were downcast. There were dark black bags underneath them.

"Everything okay?" John asked.

Scooter didn't seem sure of his answer, but he nodded his head anyway.

It reminded John of how he had responded to his wife's question earlier
.
Something was wrong
.
"You sure?"

Another nod.

"You don't look very good."

Scooter chuckled, trying to make a joke out of it. "Well, thanks."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"I know." Scooter looked up and down the length of the hallway, as though searching for someone. John prayed that it wasn't one of thos
e
things
.
"I guess I just had some pretty strange dreams last night. That's all."

"Strange dreams?"

"More like nightmares."

John hadn't had any bad dreams, himself, but he could see how such a thing was possible. He placed his hand on Scooter's shoulder. "Why don't you come in and sit down?"

Scooter thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I'm all right. I just wanted to check in on you."

"Everything's fine here."

"Good. I guess I should go see the girls then." A slight shiver ran through him as he spoke.

"I'm sure they're fine," John said, mistaking that shiver for concern.

"Me too." Scooter looked back down the hall. "But I should should go over there anyway. Wake them up. We need to get going soon."

"Okay." John didn't press him any further. Instead, he gave the him a smile.

However, Scooter either ignored it or didn't notice. He turned away from John and walked slowly to the next room.

Chapter 3

When Scooter heard the door close behind him, he felt a rush of panic make its way through him. He didn't think that the little girl with the bottle in her neck was going to come out and attack him. Marianne wasn't going to charge out of the room and slam an axe into his face, either
.
His ax
e
. But he couldn't get the image of them out of his mind.

He also couldn't figure out why Marianne had been in his dream. More than that, why had he dreamed about having sex with her? And why had he enjoyed it?

None of it made any sense.

He continued on to Marianne's room, but paused before knocking. He wasn't ready to see her yet.

He went back and forth between a few possible reasons there might be for the dream, but couldn't come up with anything that sounded like it made sense
.
Did it have something to do with their time in the restaurant? Was it because Marianne had proven to be braver than he had expected? Did anything she said in his dream ring true? That he deserved someone stronger? Were his feelings changing for Julie
?
The questions continued while the answers did not.

He knocked on the door.

It had only been a dream
,
he told himself
.
Nothing more.

He heard people moving around in the room. Then the door opened and Marianne greeted him. Buster was beside her.

"Scooter," she said. "Good morning!"

Upon seeing her, Scooter couldn't speak. The whole of last night's dream played itself over again in his mind. He pictured Marianne's lips against his own. He saw her naked body on top of him. Hi
m
i
n
her.

"Everything okay?"

"It's…uh…" He knew that he was being ridiculous
.
It had only been a dream
!
"It's fine."

"Are you sure? You don't look to well."

He thought about making the same joke he had to John, but the words didn't come out. "Yeah, everything's okay."

Marianne's brow raised.

"Really," he continued. "I'm just being stupid."

"What do you mean?"

"It's…it's nothing…really." He squeezed his axe to give him a little more confidence.

Marianne didn't look as though she believed him, though she didn't say any more about it. She stepped back and motioned for him to come into the room. "We're just getting up," she said.

Scooter hesitated for a second, then went into the room. Marianne closed the door.

"Look everyone," she said pleasantly walking with Buster into the room behind him. "We have a visitor!"

Julie and Emily were still lying on the bed. Awake, but barely. Julie had her head rested on her arm. The blankets pulled up over her. Emily peered out from the top of them. Her eyes fought to stay open. Though she was able to manage a smile.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," the little girl replied.

Julie forced herself to sit up. "Are you all right? You don't look too good."

He smirked. "I've been told."

"You don't," Marianne reiterated. She placed her hand on his shoulder. "You're not getting sick, are you?"

Her touch startled him, but he fought the urge to pull away. That would only make things worse. "I'm…no, I'm not sick."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Nothing, honestly." He made his way over to one of the chairs and sat down. They continued to watch him, waiting to hear the truth. "I…uh…I guess I just didn't have a very good sleep."

"I told you you shouldn't have slept on your own!" Julie said. "You were probably up all night thinking thos
e
thing
s
were going to get you!"

"No, it wasn't that."

"Then what was it?"

"Nothing," he said again.

"Well, you should've stayed in here with us."

Scooter didn't like the sound of that at all. He couldn't imagine sleeping in the same room with Marianne. Not anymore. He grabbed a can of juice that was on the table and opened it. "We have to get going soon," he said after he took a long sip.

Julie shifted uncomfortably. "Are you sure we have to leave?"

The question surprised them
.
Of course they had to leave
.
They had talked about it yesterday. There were too many dead bodies in the hotel. They needed to find other survivors. And after his dream, he had no intention of spending another night here.

"We can't stay," he said. "It's really bad here.
"
Fuckin' horrible.

"But those creatures aren't around. We have food."

"Can't you smell it it? There'll be disease soon enough."

"But we could clear it out."

"Too many bodies. Too much blood." He didn't understand why she was arguing.

"I know," she said, defeated. "It'd just be nice to have a safe place for a while."

Scooter couldn't disagree. It would be nice to have that. Except this hotel wasn't the place for that. They had to leave.

"Give us some time to get ready," Marianne said. She touched his shoulder again.

"Okay." He got up from his chair and went to the door. "I'm going to head back over to John's and see if they need any help."

"We'll be over there soon." Marianne followed him to the door. "Now, listen, are you sure that you're okay?"

"Everything's fine." He pushed out the thoughts of his dream that threatened to come back into his mind.

"Okay. But if there's ever anything that you need to talk about, let me know."

"I will."

Scooter closed the door behind him, yet didn't move away from it. He knew that he was blowing this all out of proportion. Marianne hadn't done anything wrong. She was trying to be helpful. Trying to be a friend. And he had to accept and appreciate that for what it was.

He looked down the hallway toward where the little girl with the bottle in her neck laid in a pool of blood.

No
w
tha
t
was something to worry about.