Rage Within (21 page)

“Don’t hurt me,” the guy said. He’d completely covered his hair with his hands. “I’m cool.”

“You already said that,” Michael said. But he lowered the blender and hid it behind his back.

From the corner, Ryder was watching Michael with a look of amusement on his face. Before he could help himself, a wave of hysterical laughter burst out of Michael’s chest.

“Don’t just stand there,” Ryder said. “Get inside and close the damn door behind you.”

“Yeah,” Michael said through the giggles. “What were you, born in a barn? Don’t let the heat get out.”

CLEMENTINE

This was one of those nights that would end without Clementine getting any sleep. Nothing new there. She was getting really good at functioning in a sleep-deprived state. As long as she didn’t wake up by the side of a road again, like she had once in the early days, she could deal with it.

They’d returned home last night to discover that one of the university girls was running a high fever and the Tylenol Larisa had been dumping down her throat didn’t appear to be working.

The girl’s name was Emma. A good chunk of her arm had been torn off. The skin around the gash was hot to the touch and there were red streaks crawling up to her shoulder and down toward her elbow. Larisa had explained that this was a major sign of infection, along with her 103 degree temperature. Her friend Janelle wasn’t doing well either. She’d taken a knife to the stomach and had started vomiting blood about an hour ago. Although Clementine was no expert, she was pretty positive there was internal bleeding. Without proper medical care, they both might not make it.

“I don’t know what to do,” Larisa said. She was busy
hopping around on her good foot, ignoring Joy’s attempts to get her to sit down and take a break. “I’m not trained enough to deal with this. I was only in my first year of nursing school. We haven’t learned anything yet.”

“Joy’s right,” Aries said. “You need to take a breather. You’re bleeding through your bandages. Let us take over.”

Larisa finally agreed to sit down, and Nathan helped her to the living room, where he attempted to change her bandages under her direction. Joy tried to help out but retreated to her bedroom after growing pale and muttering something about the sight of so much blood.

The main-floor bedroom had become a hospital ward. It had been empty until now. Everyone was doing their best to help out, except Colin, of course. Even Claude, the sour-faced guy who’d shoved Michael, was trying to pitch in. Colin of course had to be difficult. The only appearance he’d put in so far was to pass them all on his way to the kitchen to find a warm bottle of Gatorade.

Clementine placed her hand on Emma’s forehead. Boiling hot. Not an understatement. She could probably cook an egg on her skull. Maybe fry up some hash browns to go with it. She turned to Aries, who was pouring bottled water onto a washcloth. It was a real shame they didn’t have any ice. Weren’t you supposed to dunk people in the shower if they got too hot? She tried to remember if she knew anything else but came up blank. She’d never been much of a caregiver. That was more Mom’s field. Then again, it wasn’t like anyone she knew ever got that sick.

Dear Heath, do you remember the time you tried jumping the curb on your bike and your foot got tangled up in the chain? You hit the pavement really hard and there was dirt and gravel stuck in the palms of your hand. Your knee was bleeding and your jeans were sliced to bits. I remember how brave you were, you didn’t even cry once, even when the doctor stitched your palm back up. You walked funny for several weeks while we waited for the scab to fall off. I wish I’d paid attention now to all those times we gave Mom and Dad heart attacks by jumping off the rafters in the barn or skateboarding in the town park. I’m a lousy nurse. Can’t even figure out what to do over a fever. What’s the old saying? Feed a cold, starve a fever? Or is it the other way around? Either way, breaking out the Doritos isn’t going to help in this situation.

“I don’t know what to do,” she muttered.

“Me neither,” Aries said, and she placed the cloth against the girl’s forehead. Clementine waited to hear if the water would sizzle under all that heat.

The girl just moaned but didn’t open her eyes.

“We need to find help,” Aries said. “It’s fantastic that we have Larisa, but she’s right, one year of nursing school isn’t enough. Brandi was here yesterday. She said they’d run into someone who had a doctor in their group. She was going to go check it out. Maybe we should send someone over there to see.”

“I’ll go,” Raj said from the door. He’d been standing around with his hands stuffed into his pockets. His dark face was quite pale, even with all the shadows in the room.

“We’ll both go,” Clementine said. “Brandi’s place is well hidden. And they’d probably shoot you on sight. They’re not kind to strangers.”

“Fair enough,” Raj said. “Let’s go do this, babes. I can’t stand here feeling so helpless.”

Clementine looked at Aries. “Will you be okay?”

Aries nodded. “I’ve got Nathan and Joy. They can give me a hand until you get back. We’ll survive.”

She glanced down at the girl one last time before standing.
“Okay,” she said to Raj. “Let’s go get some weapons from the garage.”

*   *   *

The sun was a faint glimmer in the eastern sky when they started out. The clouds were trying to push it back down. The morning was cold and drizzling. It seemed so strange to be in the middle of December without snow. Clementine would much rather put up with the white stuff, even if it did make it harder to cover their tracks.

Dear Heath, no white Christmas for me. Remember how we always knew the holidays were around the corner because Dad used to hum that song all the time? I swear, it was the only Christmas carol he knew. He drove Mom completely crazy last year. I thought for sure she was going to toss him in the barn for the night.

The rain was worse. It made her depressed when the clouds took over the sun for days on end. She was always cold, too. Not the kind of cold she could fight by slipping on an extra pair of socks or a sweater. No, this was something different. This got into her bones and no amount of extra clothing could chase it away.

Clementine had the transistor radio tucked away in the bottom of her backpack. She’d worked out a deal with Nathan to check in every half hour or so. Not using the radios was what got them into this whole situation in the first place.

How she wished she could turn on the radio and hear Michael’s voice right about now. Just to know he was okay and still alive.

Brandi’s safe house was located just off Granville Street. It wasn’t far, if they cut through the backyards, they could get there in about ten minutes.

“WARNING. WARNING. THE CITY IS CLOSED. NO ONE IS ALLOWED IN OR OUT.”

They ducked around an old two-story house to avoid the white van patrolling the street.

“Every time I hear that message, I don’t know whether to cringe or laugh hysterically,” Raj muttered as they crawled underneath a back porch.

“I know what you mean,” Clementine said as she ducked to avoid a web with a juicy brown spider in the middle of it. “We better be careful. The Baggers are close.”

They managed to reach Brandi’s block without any major run-ins. The white van headed off in the direction of downtown and the warning message grew progressively weaker as the minutes dragged on.

“This is weird,” Clementine said. They’d reached the beginning of the block. She could see the white-and-green-trimmed house a few doors down. She’d been here twice before. Brandi’s team of survivors were efficient. There were always two or three guards hiding out on the street. Normally there was one positioned right where they were standing, hiding in a makeshift barricade that wasn’t noticeable from the street. Brandi herself often sat there for hours on end.

The area was empty. The only sign of recent life were a couple of empty cans and a half-eaten package of trail mix.

“We’d better be careful,” Raj said. Rain dripped from his curly hair and he breathed warm air into his hands.

She nodded. Her own hair was stuck to her scalp. In another world she could have been sporting a bright red umbrella, maybe even with polka dots. Instead her blond locks felt like icicles against her ears. Jumping up and down a few times, she tried to bring some feeling back into her toes.

They continued along the street, keeping to the shadows of the houses. Many of the buildings were closed up tightly and locked. Several of them had the blinds drawn. Was it possible
there were other stray stragglers hidden behind those walls? Or had Brandi and her group gone from house to house, closing everything up so their own safe house wouldn’t stick out among the others?

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe. Catch some survivors by the toe. If they holler, kill them on the spot.

So quiet.

In all her years, she’d never truly noticed how quiet a place can become until after the Bagger invasion. And she was used to quiet, considering she grew up on a farm. The townsfolk of Glenmore weren’t the rowdy types. More than 70 percent of the town was over the age of sixty. Women who sat around playing bridge all day didn’t really kick off their heels and party all night long. Even the roads were quiet and hardly ever used. Clementine used to take her books into the fields as a little girl and hide out in the tall wheat. She’d listen to the crickets and close her eyes as the wind gently swayed through the grain. She enjoyed the solitude and took it for granted.

Quiet used to mean calm and peaceful. Now it was deadly. The ominous feeling pressed down around her, making her that much more aware of little things like her quickened breathing or the way the birds were no longer chirping away above them.

“Should we go around to the back?” Raj asked. His voice sounded weird in the midst of all that silence. They were one stop away from the safe house and Clementine couldn’t tell if anyone was watching their movements. If Brandi and her group were inside, they’d be fully aware that Clementine and Raj were outside. Last time she’d come with Aries, they’d approached the front door and someone had opened it before they’d even put their feet on the first porch step. So going around the back seemed too sneaky, especially since they were
welcome. Everyone in Brandi’s group knew who they were.

“No,” she said. “We can go round the front. The street’s empty. It’s safe for us, I think.”

No one opened the door when she and Raj climbed up the steps toward the porch. Now she was at a loss. What was she supposed to do? Knock? Hello, would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies? She glanced over at Raj, but he looked as clueless as she felt.

She tapped on the door softly with her knuckles. The sound seemed shockingly loud. Stepping back, she turned and glanced both ways down the street. Nothing out of place. Just rain, rain, and more; rain. A set of wind chimes echoed from the house next door, the sound came across as lonely as the cry of a loon.

“You know that creepy feeling you get when something is about to go dreadfully wrong?” Raj asked. “It’s like a thousand snakes are trotting around in your stomach?”

“Snakes don’t trot.”

“Slither, crawl, gallop—same stuff, different pile. Well, I’m getting that right about now, babes.”

She nodded. “Me too.”

They both faced the door. A glass window with the curtains drawn looked back at them. There was no way to tell if anyone or anything was waiting for them.

“We should check it out,” Clementine said. She gripped her baseball bat tightly in her soaked fingers. Rain dripped from the wood, pooling on the welcome mat beneath her feet.

“Yep, we should.”

Neither of them moved.

“Even if the Baggers got them, someone might still be alive.”

“Yep.”

Still no movement.

She reached out with her fingers and grasped the handle. Slowly she turned it, careful to make as little noise as possible. It was unlocked. She pushed gently on the frame and the door opened, creaking loud enough to make her cringe.

The smell of blood insulted her nostrils immediately.

Oh, this was bad.

Raj gagged and stepped backward, just managing to rush over to the side of the porch, where he heaved over the bushes. Clementine held her breath, refusing to let the smell into her nose and mouth.

She stood at the door, straining her ears for the sounds, or lack of them, coming from inside the darkened house. But all she could hear was Raj spitting several times as he tried to clear his throat.

“Sorry, babes,” he whispered when he finally returned to the door. “Much better. Never was good with the stomach. Smells. They overpower me. Make me all weak in the knees. But there’s nothing left in the stomach now, so I should be okay.”

“You talk too much when you’re nervous,” she whispered back.

“That too.”

She opened her mouth and took a series of small little breaths. “Okay,” she said as she raised her bat. “Let’s do this.”

They stepped through the door.

A putrid smell of copper and overripe bathroom hit her face. Clementine gasped, her eyes watering as she pulled her shirt up over her mouth. Behind her, Raj made a choking sound in his throat.

“Are you okay?” She didn’t dare look at him. Misery loves company, and she was afraid that if she took even a small glance at his face, she might end up joining him in a visit to the bushes to toss her cookies.

“I’ll live,” Raj said. His voice was muffled as if he was talking through his shirt too. “I think the worst is over.”

The first body was lying on the stairs. Clementine didn’t recognize him, an older man; his arm was sticking through the banister at an awkward angle. A pool of blood lay sticky beneath his head, while his eyes stared up at a black-and-white photo of seashells. Clementine bent down to double-check. There was a big gaping hole in the middle of his forehead. The expression on his face was more of bewilderment than horror. He might have been the first to go. They must have surprised him when he came down the stairs.

Dear Heath, am I going to die like that? A pile of cold flesh left to rot in an abandoned house. What—