Love in the Time of the Dead (15 page)

It was late in the afternoon, and the shadows from the evergreen forest stretched across her hiking boots. Down in a large crevice, a truck was backed into a ledge and half hidden by Mother Nature. How on earth someone was able to get that vehicle down there in the first place, she couldn’t guess. When the boys removed the brush that had served as camouflage, a midsized four-wheel-drive Chevy was exposed, fully jacked up in every sense of the word. Maybe it hadn’t been so hard getting that lifted, red, roaring beast in the hole after all. She smiled sadly. Jarren would have loved it.

Sean tried to start it a few times with no luck. Laney, Finn, and Guist patrolled nervously at the noise. They definitely didn’t need to attract Dead attention with their getaway car stalled in a ditch.

Mitchell popped the hood, and the annoying half of him disappeared to tinker inside. The bearable half of him was on display as he balanced on one foot in his gray cargo pants and boots. Damn, that man could wear a pair of pants. He had found a pair that was tighter on his assets and looser in the legs, effectively lengthening his already impressive height and accenting his athleticism.

She jerked her gaze away from Mitchell and mentally strangled herself. What was wrong with her? It was Mitchell. She got over her crush on him in high school. She couldn’t even name a more dangerous man to give her heart to. Her gaze fell on Sean, who was turning the engine over again. Well, maybe she could name one.

Mitchell leaned against the open hood and stared at the truck’s innards with a slight frown. “I think it’s just the gas. It’s been sitting too long in the tank and it’s settled.” He shut the hood of the truck and pulled the tail of his shirt up to wipe his hands.

Sean jumped out of the truck and pulled a canvas off the bed, exposing a row of red sloshing gas cans. They added more gas to the tank before Sean said a little prayer and tried to start it again. It took a couple of tries, but the engine finally roared to life, to the relief of everyone watching and crossing fingers for something, anything, to go as planned.

Mitchell jumped in the bed of the truck, and they made their way slowly but steadily up the ravine to where the rest of the group waited.

“Come on, Adrianna,” Laney said as she picked up the little girl who had taken to clinging to her leg while Sean was busy. “You can sit in the back seat with me.”

The truck was a four-door, and roomy enough, but Finn was roughly the size of a Clydesdale, and they had six people to fit into a five-seater.

“I’m staying back here,” Mitchell announced when they pulled up.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because there is no room to spread out inside, and I need sleep. I was up all night watching you twitch and moan.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Fine. More room for us.” She grinned at the little girl firmly holding onto her hand.

Sean drove, and Guist took the front seat, leaving the back seat to Finn, Laney, and Adrianna.

“I’m hungry,” Adrianna said after they had picked their way a couple of miles through the dense woods.

Laney had opened the window that separated the bed of the truck from the cab so she could hear Mitchell if he saw Deads. It also wouldn’t hurt to keep her nose in the wind. She thought Mitchell was already asleep, but at the child’s complaint he started rifling through his pack. He handed Laney a bruised but still edible apple through the window.

“Can she have an apple?” Laney asked Sean.

“Yeah, but she can’t chew the skin very well yet.”

She pulled a pocket knife out of her pack and peeled the apple with an unbroken cut. She handed the long coil of skin back to Mitchell, who arched his eyebrows with impressed approval. She sliced the apple into manageable slivers for Adrianna, and as the child munched hungrily on the fruit, Laney searched her own pack for something to add to the meal. All she could find was more dried fruit, two leftover biscuits, and half a package of colony-made wheat crackers. Guist had obviously planned for them to hunt on the way to their next mission when he had packed for them.

She divvied up the stash between herself, Adrianna, and the men, but after having consumed her small portion, she concluded it wasn’t nearly enough. Finn pulled out a plastic bag that contained thick squares of homemade granola bar in it. The sight and faint smell of the peanuts alone were enough to elicit a rumbling growl from her unsatisfied stomach.

Finn pulled out a square and handed it to her without saying a word. She nodded her appreciation and knocked it lightly against Finn’s own granola bar in silent cheers. She offered some to Adrianna, but the little girl was satisfied and nodding off with her head resting in Laney’s lap.

She looked up to see Sean watching her in the rearview mirror. His radiant eyes looked curious and tender.

She leaned her head on the window and finished her meal, and before she knew it, she had fallen into an unexpectedly peaceful sleep to the gentle pulling of the truck as she stroked Adrianna’s hair.

Laney’s head snapped forward as the truck jerked to a stop. “How long have I been asleep?” she asked Finn as she looked out the window to unfamiliar surroundings.

“Half the day.”

She must have heard him wrong. “As in all of the waking hours of a day?”

“Yeah, we stopped like six times for munchkin here to take a potty break.” Finn nodded his head toward a fidgeting Adrianna. “You didn’t move a muscle.”

At the mention of it, she felt the strain against her own bladder to the point of discomfort. “Why didn’t anyone wake me?”

“For what? We were just driving. Besides, your mind and body are trying to heal from a whole lot of hurt. You needed the sleep.”

She had to admit that, besides a seriously stiff neck and constant dull ache where all of her injuries were, she hadn’t felt so well-rested in a long time. “Did we run into any Deads?”

“A few groups but we outran them all. This truck has some get-up-and-go. There just aren’t as many of them this far up in the mountains. There wasn’t a huge population to turn Dead in the first place and fewer humans for food up here. This colony is kind of in the middle of nowhere.”

Sean had pulled the map over the steering wheel and was discussing the route in a hushed voice with Guist. Apparently traveling the woods for such a distance had thrown them out on an unfamiliar road.

“I think we’re almost there,” Finn said, sounding relieved.

“Need a moment,” she called up to the front seat. She hopped out of the truck to relieve her bladder. She could feel Mitchell’s eyes on her from the bed of the truck, but she did her best to ignore him. She focused on scouting out the perfect forest toilet instead. She smelled the faint, sickly sweet musk of Deads, but they were too far off for immediate concern.

When she was back in the truck again, Sean turned to her.

“We’re going to be there in a few minutes, but I wanted to touch base with you guys first.”

Mitchell stuck his head in the window.

“There were closer colonies, but this one houses one of Doc’s old buddies. Name is Dr. Mackey and they met back in their days of working at the CDC together. I figured this would be a better option to start work with Laney.”

“You mean
on
Laney,” she grumbled.

“We trade with this colony and their leader is a good lady,” he continued. “But she is strict. If you guys want to stay here and give Mackey some time, you will have to mind colony rules to the letter.”

Mitchell made a snoring sound and retreated from the window.

Sean frowned slightly and folded up the map. He put the truck in drive and took a hard right. Within minutes the truck pulled up to a makeshift gate that flanked a fence of strewn barbed wire.

Guist leaned forward in the front seat and squinted at the fence. “I don’t think that would stop a Dead. They don’t feel anything. The best you could hope is that they get tangled up in the wire to buy some time.”

“True,” Sean said as he pulled the truck to a stop. “Which is why they also electrified it and attached bells every few feet. Not even a rabbit gets in without the guards being alerted. It’s still not as safe as the colony needs, though, which is why they’re building that.” Sean pointed out his window. Through the foggy mist that had descended upon them Laney could make out an imposing wooden fence in progress. “The wire fence is only temporary. The colony is fairly new and it takes time to create safety.” Sean waved two fingers to a guard who had spied their truck and was approaching. There were ghosts in his voice. “And even then, no matter how safe you think you are, things can still go horribly wrong.”

The guard talked quietly to Sean through his open window and then spoke into his walkie talkie. He requested backup and was rewarded with four more guards that appeared out of the fog. They ordered everyone to exit the truck, and the other guards gave respectful greetings to Sean. They apologized for subjecting him to the required bite check.

“I completely understand. I do have one request though.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“The woman in my crew, Laney, has been shot on her side,” he told them. “We put her through the ringer a couple of days ago because we thought it looked suspicious.” He smiled. “I assure you she isn’t turning and the wound is already healing. I just wondered if you would conduct both her and my daughter’s search with respect and as much privacy as can be managed.”

The four guards looked to the first who had approached the truck. He consented.

“Behind the truck,” a short, stocky guard commanded.

Laney took Adrianna’s hand and pulled the little girl behind her. She stopped when they were out of direct view of all but two armed guards and began lifting the child’s shirt and pant legs as instructed until she was cleared.

“Okay, baby. Go back over to your daddy while we finish up here,” she told her in a low voice. If this was the time she was going to be shot for her Dead bites, it was best if Adrianna was out of the line of fire.

“Clothes off,” the shorter guard instructed.

She started to protest the complete removal of her garments, but he cut her off.

“We have orders. If you don’t comply to the bite search, you don’t enter the colony.”

She bit her lip and scurried farther out of direct sight from her team before she peeled off her clothes for the second time in a week for a group of complete strangers. Light rain spattered across her bare skin and raised gooseflesh in waves across her arms. The men were professional, obviously doing their best to ignore her feminine assets other than to do a quick check that her skin was unblemished by teeth marks. They ignored her tattoo, choosing instead to focus on the atrocious injury on her side. She didn’t look down at it. She stared straight ahead and waited for the verdict. She knew what it looked like. It looked exactly like what it was.

“Sir?” the shorter guard called to Sean.

He appeared around the side of the truck.

“Seriously?” she exclaimed angrily. “Can I at least put my pants back on?”

“Yes,” Sean told her, as he glared down the guard. “What is the problem?”

“Sorry, sir. It’s just
that
—” he pointed to her side as she tried to scramble into her pants “—doesn’t look like any gunshot wound I’ve ever seen. Surely you can see why I’m going to have to call it in to Mel.”

“Get her on the radio. I’ll talk to her personally. Did you even bother to notice it is an old injury?” he asked angrily.

The anger must have been for show since he’d recently made the same assumption that she was in danger of turning into a brain-eating zombie at any moment, too.

“Landry,” Sean barked. “Put your clothes back on!”

She was already hurriedly zipping her pants up with her back to the argument. If he was waiting for a “yes, sir” from her, he was clearly deranged. She turned her head to tell him so, but she stopped when she noticed his eyes raking down her bare back. She resisted a shiver and a smart remark. Instead she reached for the black shirt still draped over the side of the truck bed, and slid directly back into her semi-modest comfort zone. She grabbed her vest and weapons and slunk around the truck to stand by the others. Maybe the color in her cheeks would go down before the boys got a real look at her face.

“I’m either never leaving this colony or we are living in the woods forever. I can’t handle any more gate checks,” she complained as she straightened her shirt.