Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1) (16 page)

“Find any food?”

“We were about to start looking for it.”

“How about Jan and I do that? You can check other rooms for useful stuff. A woman’s place is in the kitchen, right?” she added when Hank started to refuse.

“She doesn’t speak English well. Only a few words.”

“Oh, we’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll find a way to communicate.”

Hank shuffled his feet, then muttered an agreement before turning and leaving them alone in the kitchen.

Janjai looked up to see Maura craning her neck to follow Hank’s movement. The woman watched him until he was a safe distance away before turning her attention to her.

“What’s the real story?” she asked in a low voice. “Are you even really married to that man?”

Surprised by the question, Janjai felt her eyes widen and quickly schooled her features into a blank mask, something she’d mastered early on in her marriage. She didn’t respond, but instead continued to open cabinets in search of food.

“Funny. You don’t speak English but know we’re looking for food,” Maura commented behind her.

Janjai stilled for a moment but quickly started moving again remembering that she didn’t want to appear as if she understood Maura’s words. She could have guessed they were looking for food or she could have been looking on her own, she figured as she checked expiration dates on boxes of Rice-A-Roni, setting the still edible ones on the counter.

She felt the weight of Maura’s stare on her cheek and glanced that way to find the woman standing in front of the sink, the cabinet above it open, but her focus was not on what was inside. Her eyes bore a hole through her, studying her curiously. She looked down at the boxes, then back up at her, brow wrinkled in thought.

Janjai didn’t know what was so curious. She’d merely found food and taken it out of the cabinet to share with the others. She shrugged it off and continued her search. The family had left behind a lot of boxed goods, either thinking only canned goods were worth taking, or maybe they simply hadn’t returned home one day, killed by zombies before they could reach the shelter of their house.

“Nothing up there,” Maura said as she closed the cabinet above the sink.

Janjai moved to the next set of cabinets, watching Maura squat down and open the cabinet beneath the sink from the corner of her eye. Not wanting to show too much interest and invite any commentary, she returned her attention to her task, removing two small cans of fruit cocktail from the shelf.

“Want a drink?” Maura asked. “This looks good and I don’t know about you but I’m mighty thirsty.”

Janjai was thirsty so she decided to look in Maura’s direction. If Maura offered her something by physically handing it over, that didn’t necessarily mean she understood English. Also, Hank thought he had taught her a few words. Drink was one of them. If Maura told her husband she understood English because of that he would just wave it off.

The polite smile she’d been prepared to give froze on her face as she saw the bottle Maura had just set on the kitchen table before turning to retrieve two glasses from one of the cabinets.

The bottle resembled a large bottle of juice but the black words on the white label clearly spelled out RAT POISON in marker. Janjai could only assume the original label had been destroyed or the previous owners of the house had poured the poison from another container. Since it was not the original label there were no poison warning signs, nothing that she as a foreigner who couldn’t read or speak English could point at and warn Maura away.

The woman was good.

Still, she wouldn’t drink it. All Janjai had to do was fake ignorance and Maura would give up the game so when Maura returned to the table with two glasses she smiled as she took hers, nodded her head and said “Thank you,” two of the simple words Hank thought he’d taught her.

“Very welcome,” Maura said as she twisted off the bottle cap and poured the blue liquid into the two glasses. “I love blueberry flavored drinks though I’d kill for a soft drink right now. This will do.”

Janjai had expected Maura to watch her, waiting to see if she paused before accepting the drink. She figured Maura would just stop her as she raised the glass to her mouth. She hadn’t expected Maura to grab her own glass and start to throw it back.

Janjai’s heart stopped as she watched Maura raise the glass full of poison to her mouth without the slightest hesitation. She didn’t watch Janjai, didn’t seem to care if she drank hers. She appeared like any other thirsty woman who’d been given something to drink. No hesitation, just instant quenching.

Then it dawned on Janjai. Just because the woman was American and could speak English it didn’t mean she could read it. The nice woman who’d helped her was going to ingest poison if she didn’t do anything to stop it.

“No!” She grabbed the glass just as it touched Maura’s lips and yanked it away before any liquid could be consumed.

“What the hell?”

Maura sounded genuinely angry as Janjai poured the liquid down the sink.

“Why’d you do that?”

Janjai turned around, facing Maura. Biting her lip, she thought about what to do. Maura could always pour another glass. She could also tell the people she was with to throw her and Hank out. Then she’d be all alone with Hank. Pouring out all of the poison would save Maura and the others but then who would save her from being alone with Hank if Maura didn’t understand her actions and tossed them out of their group?

With Maura fuming at her, waiting for a response, Janjai crossed over to the table and pointed at the words on the bottle.

Maura looked at where her finger pointed and shrugged. “What?”

Janjai pointed again, practically stabbing the bottle with her finger.

“What?” Maura repeated.

Janjai kept pointing until Maura shrugged and reached for the glass she’d poured for her earlier.

“No!” Janjai grabbed that glass. “It’s poison.”

Maura’s eyebrow shot up. “And how do you know this?”

She pointed at the words on the label again.

“That says poison?”

Janjai nodded.

Maura clicked her tongue. “There are no pictures on this little handmade label, just handwritten words. You really think I’m dumb enough to believe you recognize these handwritten words but you can’t understand English?”

Janjai turned away but Maura grabbed her arm, halting her before she could put distance between them.

“Jan, I can help you. You obviously trust me on some level or you would have let me drink this. There’s no need to act like you can’t understand me.  It’s a freaking zombie apocalypse out there. We need to be able to communicate and help each other out. Understand?”

Janjai angled her head so she could see through the kitchen door. There was no sign of Hank in the room beyond though she knew he would never trust her enough to be very far for long.

Maura followed her gaze and turned back toward her, eyes hardened. “Is it him that you don’t want to know?”

Hell, Janjai thought, Maura was right. It was a zombie apocalypse. She needed these people. She had to trust someone and that someone sure wasn’t Hank.

“Yes,” she answered. “He is my husband. That was not a lie.”

“Does he hurt you?”

Jan looked away, eyes watering with shame.

“Jan, tell me so I can help.”

Too embarrassed to speak the words, knowing she’d only cry if she tried to put into words what Hank had done to her, Janjai turned and lifted her shirt, exposing the evidence of Hank’s last brutal session.

Maura sucked in air before letting out a growl. “I’ll kill the bastard myself.”

Janjai quickly turned around. “No. You can not say anything to him. He is very mean and will hurt you too.”

Maura scoffed at this. “He has no power over me.”

Her words burned, feeding Janjai’s shame. “You think I am weak.”

“No, I think you’ve been used.” Maura brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “You’re a beautiful young woman in a strange country where you were forced to be dependent on a man, a bad man who used that to his advantage. A weak woman wouldn’t still be standing, and you’re smart. You fooled him into thinking you don’t speak English.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, I had my doubts as to how you could live here and not speak it at all. Then you paid attention to expiration dates on the food. Granted, expiration dates aren’t complicated and you could have been taught that fairly easy. It was mostly my gut, and what I saw in your eyes.”

“What did you see?”

“You looked like someone with a secret.”

Janjai nodded toward the rat poison. “You are very smart. I thought you were going to wait and see if I drank, but what would you have done if I hadn’t stopped you?”

Maura shrugged before picking up the bottle and placing it back in the cabinet beneath the sink. “Some days I think I could drink this stuff and just give up. Today isn’t such a bad day though. I would have poured it out, then yours. I would have still suspected something was up with you though. I don’t think this little experiment would have quieted my gut.”

“You can not tell Hank.”

“Why is that?” Maura folded her arms as she leaned a slender hip against the counter. She’d slid her machete into the sheath at her waist before searching for food so instead of busying her hand with it, she fingered the strap of the backpack she wore. “I doubt he can ship you back to China now.”

“Thailand.”

“My bad. Point is, you’re here to stay. America’s got bigger issues to deal with than some little Asian woman wanting to be one of us. They’ll have to deport the zombies before they deport anyone else.”

“That may be true but it will not stop Hank from hurting me. I am his wife. His property.”

Maura stepped forward, nostrils flaring. “OK, I don’t know how y’all do things in Thailand but in America you are no man’s property. Not even your husband’s. Got that?”

Janjai nodded. “Hank believes differently. If he knew I lied about not speaking English, that I have deceived him all this time, he will be furious. He will kill me.”

“Why did you lie about it?”

“My mother told my sister and I to choose our husbands carefully but to still be cautious. She said to pretend we didn’t speak the language so that our husbands would speak freely around us and we would know exactly what kind of character he had. If our husband had good character we could trust him enough to confess we spoke the language. If he had bad character, we should pretend ignorance until we had our citizenship, then he would be unsuspecting when we planned our escape and divorce.”

“You have a sister here?”

Janjai wiped away a fresh tear. “If she is alive. She lives in Colorado with her husband. She was lucky to find a good husband. He has never hit her. I tried to escape after the outbreak, to find her. Hank woke up and caught me as the infected people attacked. His friend was killed, or infected. I’m not sure which. It happened so fast. Hank blames me. The scars on my back are from that night.”

“Why did you marry Americans?”

“My mother became very ill. We were already poor and there were not many men to choose from in our village. A friend’s sister had married an American and the man was good to her family. He sent money to them. My sister and I discussed it and decided we would marry American men so we would have opportunities that we could not get where we came from, and we received money to provide our mother’s medical care. The last letter I received from my mother, she told me Pimjai was going to send for her next year.”

“So you did it for your mother?”

“Our mother would bathe in fire for us. What we did for her seemed so little in comparison.”

“Did you know Hank was abusive?”

“No, he of course did not portray himself that way, but we both knew the risk we took. We both felt it was worth it to get medical care for our mother. Pimjai was fortunate. I was not, but I would do it again if it meant saving my mother.”

“I’m going to share a little secret with you, Jan. I don’t like mail-order brides. But I like you.”

Janjai frowned in confusion. “I suppose I should thank you?”

Maura shook her head. “Thank me when I do something for you, like get rid of that bastard.”

“Get rid of how?” Alarm bells sounded in Janjai’s mind. “I can not return his violence with violence. His soul is already black. I will not allow him to blacken mine.”

Maura tilted her head to the side, seeming to ponder this. “OK, but there are other ways. When we leave here, we don’t have to take him. We don’t have to take anyone if we don’t want to.”

“You are not friends with the others?”

“Just met them,” Maura said. “They gave me a ride when I needed it, but I have no loyalty to them yet. I decided to stick around and make sure everything was legit, for the girl’s sake. A little tip, Jan. Never give a man one hundred percent of your trust. They’re always looking for something better and will screw you over the minute they think they find it.”

“You have been married?”

“No. I would have, but that guy thought he found something better. I got his heart back in the end, but I shouldn’t have had to. Men can’t be trusted completely. Ever. Understand?”