Odium II: The Dead Saga (25 page)

Rachel looks away. “I
’ve heard that there are people trying to find a cure, is all. If you know anything, then you should tell someone.”

I shake my head again, rolling my eyes just for the sake of rolling them. “I don
’t know anything about a cure, or anyone who is trying to make a cure, so I sure as hell wouldn’t know who to go fucking talk to about it. As far as I know, there is no cure. Death is the trigger and death is the only cure in that same respect.”

I look away, my teeth grinding in frustration and anger. I know what she
’s saying, and I get it; and maybe it’s the naïve part of me, but I still find it hard to believe that people would turn on each other so much. It makes no sense: in a world where we all need to stand proud and help one another, we’re going around slaughtering.

Is
any of this really worth saving? Maybe the zombies were God’s way of wiping us out. What other excuse could he have for letting things get like this? I’ve never been what you might call a believer, but this is definitely hell, and the deaders are hell’s minions unleashed upon the earth, which means there must be a counterpart to it. A heaven of sorts.

After everything I
’ve seen and experienced, humans have been far worse than the deaders. At least the deaders have no choice. They can’t help themselves: feeding and killing is their only thought process.

What excuse do
we humans have?

The next day seems to have cleared away
a lot of the storm clouds, and we finally get to see a hint of blue sky for the first time in many months. Of course it literally is just a hint, but a hint is all we need to give us the small boost that maybe winter is coming to an end. Well, at least at some point in the future.

We load back up, taking the very
meager supplies we find—stupid things like pens and paper for the kids back at the base, some cleaning supplies from the janitor’s closet, toilet paper. Like I said, stupid things really—though you can never have enough toilet paper. Yes, it’s the small things that please me. Don’t judge until you’ve had to wipe your ass on leaves. We still haven’t found any food or weapons, which is the important stuff. We talk about where to head to next, the map stretched over the front of an old car.

“It just makes no sense. The warehouse is right here on the map.” Rachel points again.

“Well, this
is
a warehouse,” I offer, to which I receive a glare from Rachel. “What? I’m only saying that . . . well, why the fuck did you think food was in there, anyway?”

“We bumped into a tr
ucker a couple of months back,” Michael says as he sharpens his knife on a rock. “He told us about this place he was heading to, somewhere that he used to deliver to. He gave us the address, circled it on a map, said if we ever get to the area to look him up,”

The act
reminds me of Mikey and I feel a little homesick, which is stupid and weird because I haven’t had a home in a long time, and we don’t intend on staying at the base, so what the fuck am I getting all weirded out for? Or maybe I do want to stay at the base now, bury my head in the sand and pretend that the Forgotten and the walled cities don’t exist. And I’m still talking to myself, so I better stop before everyone thinks I’m weirder than they already do. I shake my head to clear the fog.

“So ma
ybe he gave you a false address. I mean, why would he share his stash with you anyway?” I ask, frowning at the sight of an approaching deader.

“Because we
saved his life and then we helped him rescue his wife, and he owed us big time,” Nova says between plumes of cigarette smoke. She has it between her lips as she also sharpens her knife on a rock.

I think about the samurai
sword and worry that it might need sharpening, but it’s not really seen any action yet. I continue to watch the approaching deader; it’s close enough to be annoyingly loud now, its smell wafting over to us on the tail of a small breeze. I pull out the sword and head over to it. It’s on the other side of the fence, its hands gripping the thin metal, its fingers clawing to get through.

It g
naws at the fence to get to me. Putrid, rotten gums squash on the metal, leaving liquid dripping from its mouth. Its teeth are broken and black, and its tongue is flapping around as if it were trying to lick an ice cream that was melting. This thing—this woman with her long brown matted hair—deserves a burial, but I can’t do that for her. The least I can do is put her out of her misery.

I raise my sword and ram it through a hole
in the fence, straight through into her skull and into her brain. I pull the sword back out and she falls to the ground without another noise. When I look up I can see more of them coming.

With a heavy sigh,
I head back to my three partners feeling depressed.

Nova wr
aps an arm around my shoulders. “Cheer up, chica. It’s not all bad.” She scrubs the top of my head with her knuckles, making me yelp and jump away from her. “Just think, you could look like Mr. Miserable over there.” She chuckles and lets me get away.

Michael doesn
’t say anything, but instead climbs into the back of the truck, his lips pressed together in irritation.

I smirk. “So we
’ve decided where we’re heading next, then?”

Rachel points to another X a couple of miles from where we are. “
Supermarket.”

“Are you serious? That
’s like an Apocalypse 101 no-no. There’s no point going to supermarkets, as they are either overrun and or ransacked to shit.” I look from Nova to Rachel and then to Michael. They all seem pretty calm and unfazed by it all. “Fine.” I throw my hands up in defeat and head to the front of the truck and climb in.

A couple of minutes pass
, and the passenger door opens and Rachel climbs up. She’s been taking antibiotics since the attack yesterday; we need to get some more for her before we head back. The bite doesn’t seem infected, and she’s not in as much pain as yesterday, but we all think it will be best to keep her on meds for a couple of days at least. I think back to Duncan and how quickly his infection had set in after being bitten. Had it been a worse bite? I can’t be sure now, but I think so. It seems like a lifetime ago. And those people—JD, Duncan, Crunch—they all seem like storybook characters to me. And just like in a favorite book, I still miss some of those characters. Some days the ache in my chest is hard to contend with.

I start
up the engine. It’s noisy and we’re going to need gas soon, but it feels good to be driving again. I turn the wheel and we head out through the gates. I hadn’t noticed Nova standing by them, and I stop when I drive through. From my mirrors, I watch her close the gates and climb back inside.

Heading back down the
remnants of the road is much easier today than yesterday since we did most of the hard work by clearing debris from the path. But the storms haven’t been kind to the road, either, and the truck rocks from side to side as we drive through giant potholes. It’s nothing the truck can’t handle; if anything, the road probably seems worse because of the heavy suspension of the truck.

Back on a fairly normal
stretch of road, we travel east, the trees lining either side making me nervous. I look across at Rachel, who’s staring out the window, her gun poised in her lap.

“So, yesterday, you said that they were testing on humans in your city.” I try for casual, but she catches on pretty quick.

“Yep.” She looks across at me, curiosity behind her eyes. “Why?”

“They didn
’t do that in mine,” I say with a swallow. It’s funny how it doesn’t fill me with dread anymore—only anger, and worry for the people still living there.

She looks at me with curiosity.
“How long were you there?”

“P
retty much from off the bat of this whole end-of-the-fucking-world-as-we-know-it thing.” I wave a hand around.

“Wha
t was it like—where you were?” she asks.

“Pretty shit
ty, to be honest, though there were no experiments. But it wasn’t the fucking Ritz, that’s for sure.” I laugh, and it’s genuine, too. It feels good to talk to someone about this, someone who knows in some small way how horrible it was. I can’t speak to Emily about it, because she refuses to discuss that time in her life. Though they didn’t do half the things to her that they did to me, I have a feeling she witnessed more than any child should have to. She’s growing into a woman now; I’m just glad she wasn’t a woman back then.

Rachel watches me for a minute without speaking. Perhaps she
’s thinking what to say, or maybe she’s thinking up a witty fucking reply—who knows?—but it’s me who speaks up first.

“Are there more of these cities? Ones that do things to people?” I ask carefully.

She nods. “From what we’ve heard, there are plenty of them. The story goes that the government knew the apocalypse was coming, and they were initially trying to stop it. Of course we know how well that worked out,” she says with a pinched expression.

“So this wasn
’t their fault then?” I add for clarification.

She shrugs. “No idea. A
ll we know is that they knew it was coming, and when they realized they couldn’t stop it, they tried to put precautions in place to protect themselves and fuck everyone else.” She shakes her head and looks out the window. “The testing plants or cities—whatever you want to call them—they started as a place to try and find a cure, but when I was there, they weren’t trying to find a cure, they were trying to mutate whatever causes the death virus to reanimate people. They wanted to have an army of these monsters to control.” She frowns, and I can see her jaw twitching away in anger as she grinds her teeth.

“I don
’t know what to say,” I say. “I mean, I’m completely shocked, that’s the story of horror movies. I never thought in a million years that they knew, never mind that they would be trying to put these things to work like blue-collar fucking workers! Jesus Christ, could things get any fucking worse for this world?” My body feels like snake coiled and ready to strike, I’m so pissed off with it all.

“It is what it is, Nina.”

“How can you be so nonchalant about it? That is seriously messed up. I know I’m new to this little horror story, but fuck me if that isn’t crazy bad!” I say, getting angrier by the second.

“I
’m not nonchalant, there’s just nothing I can do about it other than survive and protect those I care about.” She looks at me in confusion. “It does piss me off, but it’s a big world and who knows what other people are doing out there. Maybe one of them can be a hero of this sad little story and put an end to it.”

“Don
’t you think we should try and protect people, help them somehow?”

Rachel laughs. “What, like a rag-tag A-team? Come on, Nina, get real. Most of the people back at the base barely made it there alive, most of them wouldn
’t be able to last in this world without us. I’m happy that I’m helping
these
people. Because I can do something about that—I can protect them where they are.”

I bite down on my lip, frustration in my veins. “I know you
’re right, but it seems so…” I shake my head, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“Unfair?” s
he offers.

“Yeah.” I quirk an eyebrow. “Really fucking unfair. People are dying out there because of these deaders, and some asshole is rounding up the small amount of survivors and turning them for the sole purpose of trying to control them. That
’s fucked up.”

She shrugs. “Like I said, it is what it is.”

We travel in silence for a good while, and for the first time since this all began I realize how lucky I am that I’ve made it this far, and that I was behind the walls of a city that didn’t turn people into flesh-hungry zombies.

We
’re only driving for twenty minutes or so when we come to another town. The town looks like what you’d expect any town that has been abandoned for a while would to look like: barren, dusty, some buildings partially destroyed, burnt-out cars, yada yada, same old, same old.

A couple of zombies come out to say hello as our noisy-ass truck passes through, but they can
’t keep up with us and Michael and Nova take them out from the back of the truck. They’re scary accurate at shooting. I see the sign for the shopping mall before Rachel and begin to head to it. We pass a small supermarket on the way. The windows are smashed in and it looks as barren as the rest of the town. I suggest stopping but we agree that it’s best to head to the shopping mall and see how it looks.

I pull the truck
around a bend and over a small rise in the road, and from here I can see the large shopping mall. There’s deaders for sure, but it doesn’t look like some
Dawn of the Dead
-type movie, which always gets bonus points in my book. Then again, if the world were overrun with those types of zombies, we’d all be royally fucked in the ass anyway, which kinda makes my point moot.

“Pull
over. I need to let Michael and Nova know what’s going on,” Rachel says.

I stop the t
ruck in the middle of the road—no need for rules of the road these days. Plus I’ve learned the hard way to always stop in the middle of the road so you can see all around your vehicle before getting out. I still check my mirrors thoroughly before climbing out, already seeing Nova’s happy face looking back at me.

I laugh as I walk around to the side of the truck. Nova has pulled some of the tarp away so
she can stand up while I drive, and has clearly been like that for a while.

“What are you doing
, you crazy bitch?” I laugh. It’s dangerous, but she doesn’t seem to give a damn.

“It
’s boring back here with only miserable Michael for company.” She lights a cigarette. “So, I take it we decided the supermarket was a no-go,” she states as she surveys the landscape.

I nod. “Place looked more looted than a whore
’s panties. I’m thinking we head to the shopping mall. I think there’s less chance that everything will be gone, and more chance that we get some serious bounty. I know it’s more dangerous, but the rewards outweigh the risk—in my opinion, anyway.”

“And that is why I suggested you come along on this trip
, darlin’. I knew you had the smarts for this job,” she hoots and points at me. “And don’t worry your pretty head about getting in there. Rachel will get us in there no problem.” She grins.

Michael stands next to her.
“No explosives this time,” he says, looking between Rachel and Nova. “Well, only if they’re really needed, anyway,” he adds with a sly grin.