Mail Horror Bride (One Nation Under Zombies Book 1) (17 page)

Janjai nodded. She didn’t add that she was learning not to trust anyone completely at all, male or female. She kept that to herself. Maura was a nice woman but something about her reminded Janjai of a dog she had known during her childhood. It was sweet and loving, protective even, but if you looked at it the wrong way it’d bite the very hand you’d been feeding it with.

“Somewhere you need to be?”

Maura quickly whipped her head around to face him. “What?”

Hank finished climbing the porch steps and pounded on the front door. He turned toward his partner as they waited to see if the noise he’d just made caused any commotion inside the house. “You keep looking around.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, there are dead people walking around,” Maura replied drily. “It doesn’t hurt being aware of your surroundings.”

“True, but your gaze seems to keep resting on the house we claimed, like you’re worried about something.”

“To be honest, I would have rather you taken Hank on this scavenger hunt. I don’t feel right leaving those three behind.”

“I needed the most physically fit person I had to come with me. This is dangerous.”

“It’s not dangerous leaving them behind?”

“Hank and Angela have guns. They know how to shoot them. If zombies attack, we’ll hear the gunshots.”

“What if zombies aren’t the problem?” Maura countered. “You don’t know Hank. What if he’s a pervert or something?”

“Like I said, Angela has a gun and knows how to shoot.”

“You should have brought Hank.”

“I doubt Hank could run as fast as you if things go bad. Are you afraid or something?”

“Not of anything out here.”

Hal frowned. “Afraid of something back there?”

Maura stepped forward and cupped her hands over the glass, peering through the living room window. “It’s been long enough. If something dead was walking around inside it would have made itself known.”

Hal knew she was avoiding answering, but he also knew they were running out of daylight and the three previous houses they’d searched hadn’t turned up anything useful. Those owners had picked their property clean before leaving. The house they’d chosen to stay in had a small amount of food but nothing drinkable. They also didn’t find any light sources for when it grew dark. They needed something more than the one flashlight they’d had in the van.

He stepped back to the edge of the porch and ran forward, hitting the door with his shoulder. It opened.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Maura commented. “Were you a linebacker in high school or something?”

“Nah, just big,” Hal responded, rubbing his shoulder as they stepped inside. They each carried garbage bags they’d found inside the house they were staying in and Hal had a backpack he’d rummaged from one of the closets. Maura still wore the backpack she’d had when he and Angela found her. She never seemed to part with it. 

Hal had his gun, but wouldn’t use it unless absolutely necessary. Beside the fact that he didn’t want to use up all his bullets, the sound would draw more zombies. Paul’s machete was strapped to his waist. Maura also had one sheathed at her side.

“Where’d you get that anyway?”

“Get what?”

“Machete.” He nodded toward the weapon before he motioned for her to take the right side of the living room while he took the left. “It’s not the type of thing people just keep laying around.”

“My fiancé was military,” she answered. “He had a lot of weapons, a lot of guns. I didn’t take any of those because I don’t know how to properly handle one. I’ve seen enough YouTube videos showing what happens to idiots who attempt to shoot without any training.”

Hal groaned. “It would have been nice to have those.”

“Sorry.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know I’d run into anyone else who’d need them. I didn’t really plan on grouping up with others.”

“You’d never make it alone.” Hal studied a family photo sitting on a desk. Nice looking family, all blue eyes and blonde curls. He cringed thinking what might have happened to them and hoped for the best.

“I found some candles,” Maura announced. “They’re the scented kind but they still do the job.”

“Scavengers can’t be choosers,” Hal agreed as he watched her remove the candles from the mantle and stuff them inside her Hefty bag. “I think that’s it for this room.”

“Let’s take the upstairs first,” Maura recommended.

Seeing no reason not to, Hal led the way, taking the steps slowly in case anything jumped out at them. So far their scavenging mission had been uneventful but he knew better than to let his guard down. There was no way the entire area was zombie-free. Eventually they had to run into a few.

They searched the master bedroom first. Hal found Tylenol on one of the nightstands and a lighter. He opened the drawers and rifled through the papers and money there. He almost pocketed the money, but decided against it. For now, money was useless. If the country got itself back in order he would worry about money then. Finding nothing else useful, he closed the drawers and looked up to see Maura reading papers, her nose turned up in disgust.

“What is it?”

“Looks like the woman who lived here was a Russian mail-order bride.” She dropped the papers back into the drawer and slammed it closed. “Let’s just go. Anything here is probably contaminated.”

“It doesn’t work that way. The disease is spread through blood, saliva, or sex.”

“As far as we’ve been told and we haven’t been told anything in a long time.” She frowned. “Do we even have a government anymore? Is anyone doing anything about this?”

“You know the president would have been the first person protected and of course the CDC would still function. I’m sure a cure is being worked on,” Hal reassured her. “Angela’s father was ex-military and a survivalist. I was staying there in their house after this first happened. I used his radio to make contact with others after the internet went down. We aren’t the only survivors. This thing hit every state in staggering numbers, but there are survivors and they’re going to make it just like we are. 

“How can you be sure of that?”

“As long as there are good people left in this world there is hope, and as long as there is hope there’s a way.”

“How do you know there are any good people left?”

“Easy. I know Angela’s alive and I’m standing right here.” Hal crossed his arms and stared Maura down. “Aren’t you good?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, averting her eyes before letting her gaze roam over the rest of the room. “I’m ready to get back. Why don’t you finish upstairs since you don’t mind rifling through the mail-order bride’s things? I’ll get started in the kitchen. I guess the food won’t be contaminated if it’s still canned.”

Hal sighed. His question had been a test and he couldn’t say she’d passed with flying colors nor could he say he trusted her. “We should stick together.”

“For safety?”

“Yes.”

“Whose safety?” This time she delivered the hard stare. “If you can trust Hank, a disgusting creep who married a mail-order bride more than half his age, with Angela then you can trust me to search a house with you without being up your ass.”

“So now Jan is a mail-order bride?” Hal stepped closer to her. “How did you learn this? By assuming? Just because she’s foreign she had to be a mail-order bride? All foreigners are mail-order brides?”

“Not all, but Jan is. And no, I don’t assume every foreign woman I see is a mail-order bride, just the ones married to repulsive men old enough to be their fathers.”

“And what if they are? Why do these women bother you so much?”

“I have no problems with Jan. If anything I feel sorry for her but if you want me to feel some compassion for these Russian whores who infested our country with disease then you’re out of luck. Why do you care so much how I feel about them?” she threw back at him, stepping closer. “Did you have one? Couldn’t get a woman to come to you freely so you bought one?”

“I don’t have to have been married to one to not hate them,” he countered, standing close enough to Maura now that he loomed over her. “Don’t you get tired, Maura? All that hate, all that anger at women you don’t even know. Don’t you just get tired of holding on to all that bitterness?”

“I stay tired,” she snapped in his face, her voice elevating “but what am I supposed to do, let it go? Just forget what they’ve done? Am I supposed to forget that one of those bitches got her claws into the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with and forced me to—”

Maura turned away, taking a deep breath as she gripped the straps of her backpack tight. “I’m done with this conversation. I’m checking for food in the kitchen and then I’m going back to the house to make sure Angela and Jan are safe. I’m not going to let your lack of trust in me or your issues with my feelings about the women you damn well know caused this outbreak to happen slow us down.” 

She stormed out of the room, leaving Hal standing there with his foot in his mouth. He thought back to the night they’d picked her up, to the small conversations they’d had since and it hit him. Her fiancé had been bitten by one of the infected mail-order brides and she’d had to kill him. She had to kill the man she loved. She had to be mad at someone. The mail-order brides were the scape goat to her anger. It was easier to hate them than hate herself for what she’d had to do.

Hal sighed, feeling like an ass, but he couldn’t go make nice with her just yet. They still had a mission to complete. They needed meds, food, weapons, and tools, anything that could help keep them safe and alive longer.

He checked the closet, found a gun and a few boxes of bullets hidden in a shoebox. So far this was the best house they’d searched. Hoping his luck would continue, he found the bathroom and searched the medicine cabinet. Aspirin, Nyquil, Robitussin, a thermometer, and some assorted prescription medications. He didn’t know what the prescription medications were for but somebody might, and somebody might need them. He dumped everything into his bag and headed downstairs to help Maura.

He found her retrieving gallons of bottled water from the refrigerator.

“Thank God for that,” he said, relieved. “We needed water more than anything.”

“You can check the other rooms, I got this,” was the only response he received.

Hal nodded and crossed the kitchen to search the adjoining dining room. He knew he’d angered her. In his experience, angry women were like feral cats. Best not to approach while their hackles were raised.

He grabbed some silverware, more knives than anything, and found more candles in the bottom part of the dining room hutch. He also found two flashlights and several unopened packs of batteries. He liked this house more and more, he thought to himself as he found what must have been the family room. A large entertainment center took up one whole wall and exercise equipment was interspersed with furniture.

An autographed Louisville Slugger hung on the wall above the couch, framed signed pictures all around it. He lifted the bat and tested its weight in his hands.

Maura screamed and he heard a crash.

Hal ran through the two rooms, bat in hand, and skid to a stop as he entered the kitchen to see Maura on her back on the kitchen floor, pushing away at a rotting man whose mouth snapped at her like a vicious dog.

The door to the basement was open and two child-sized monsters emerged from it, growling. The blue-eyed blonde family in the portrait he’d seen in the living room wasn’t beautiful anymore. Their blue eyes had been replaced by cloudy white orbs, their blonde curls were now matted with blood and grime, and their skin was rotting away from their bones.

Maura screamed again as the man started to overpower her, his mouth now dangerously close to her throat.

Hal stepped forward to help her the same moment the kids rushed him. While outrunning them in the open wasn’t much of a challenge, the kitchen was small and they seemed quicker than others he’d encountered thus far.

Thinking fast and acting mostly on reflex, he sidestepped the boy and shoved the girl as hard as he could, ramming her into the counter behind him, as he raised the bat and swung it at the man, knocking him off of Maura.

She quickly crab walked away from the man and retrieved her machete from its sheath. Hal spun, bat raised, and took a swing at the boy who was rushing him again, his mouth open and drool spilling from his crusty lips.  The bat connected solidly with the boy’s head, smashing it in. As his body fell against the wall, Hal delivered two more blows, making sure the boy’s brain now decorated the pale yellow wall.

The girl approached him now, moving slower as she dragged her right arm which had broken after Hal had shoved her into the counter. She snarled at him, reaching her good hand out to grab onto him. Hal imagined he resembled nothing more than a big juicy turkey leg to the girl.

“No dark meat for you tonight, sweetheart,” he whispered, swinging the bat.

The girl was smaller than the boy, her bones more delicate, skin far more rotten with death. One swing was enough to send her head careening across the room where it hit the wall and slid down to the floor, leaving a trail of maroon blood behind. The body crumpled where it stood.

Hal turned toward Maura to see her slicing at the man with her machete. She’d made several cuts but no kill strike. She seemed scared, afraid of getting caught in the man’s outreached hands.