Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (5 page)

Huh
, I hadn’t heard a single one of them.

Harrison kept walking, rounding the corner where the Infected had first emerged, and then disappearing. The image of him beneath the Infected took hold of me, and the terror crept back. I took off after him, unwilling to leave him alone again. But as I reached the building, he came back into view.

“It’s clear,” he remarked as he continued his amble, all the way back to the freeway where we observed him peering in the windows. He opened one car door, reached in, and pulled several items from it. After a few minutes, he returned, carrying a bundle cautiously extended from his bloodied body.

“There’s a stream in there,” he tipped his chin at the woods. “I’ll be back.” He took a few more steps, passing the group the rest of us had formed, and then paused. “If I’m not…don’t wait for me.”

Doc, Mei, and Beverly remained awkwardly in place as Harrison headed into the woods before they collectively started for the building. I hesitated, my body yearning to be with Harrison for my own peace of mind and for his safety.

I found myself following him, thankful that the saturated leaves carpeting the ground dulled my footsteps. I lost sight of him just once when he trekked downhill, and the fear returned, sending me into a faster pace. By the time I breached the hill, he was in the water, scrubbing the remains of the Infected from his skin.

Night had fallen now, but we were given a clear sky and a full moon, with just enough light to make out Harrison’s silhouette in the water. He was remarkable. The broadness of his shoulders tapering to a strong, whittled waist, the contracting of his muscles as he moved his body, the full spectacle of him made blinking a nuisance. I couldn’t seem to look away. Only after he stepped out and onto the shore did I lose sight of him. I swayed to the side, angled around a bush, and still there was no sign of him.

“You should have come in.”

Harrison’s voice from behind made me jump.

“At least your sense of humor is back,” I muttered, turning around.

He wasn’t smiling. “You had no idea I was here, did you?” When I didn’t answer, he persisted. “What would you have done if I was an Infected?”

“Kill you,” I replied steadily, and in the moonlight I saw him fight off a satisfied grin before allowing it to come through. It faded when I spoke again.

“What were you thinking back there?”

His eyes fell to his wounds, assessing them. I noticed for the first time that he’d changed his clothes. They covered the shredding his skin had suffered earlier so that he appeared almost untouched. He was now dressed in a flannel and jeans, which I assumed came from the vehicle on the freeway. To my shame, I actually noticed how well they fit him.

“You didn’t have…,” he paused while plucking a tooth from his forearm and pitching it to the side. “You didn’t have enough ammo.”

And I hadn’t. He’d done the math and been correct. I would have run out, the Infected would have overtaken us, and we would have been no more than fresh meat served right up to them. So he had thrown himself in the face of danger and once again sacrificed himself for us. That was what he’d done since the first day we spoke in the hallway at school, and it was probably what he’d do again if given the chance. I had the same screw loose so, even though it bothered me, it didn’t shock me. What I didn’t understand was why he would put a gun to his head.

“Did you honestly believe I would willingly put a gun on you? What were you thinking?”

He replied mildly, “That you wouldn’t do it yourself.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger either.”

We were walking back now, but he stopped sharply. When he spoke it wasn’t in anger or frustration, as I had expected. It was solemn and anxious. “You need to think about what you just said, Kennedy. Really think about it. Do you mean to tell me that if I was coming at you, baring my teeth, craving you as a food source, you wouldn’t protect yourself?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

His lips dipped into a frown. “All right, the others? What if I came at the others? Doc? Mei? Beverly?”

I cringed at the thought and my instinct to protect him above anyone else. “I still couldn’t.”

His hands tightened into fists, but he kept his voice down. “You understand that I’d be gone, Kennedy.
Gone
,” he stressed. “Lost to the virus. There would be no hope of bringing me back. The person you know me as now would no longer exist.”

“I know that, Harrison.”

“Our bodies are vehicles, just flesh and bone vehicles, and sometimes something else takes the driver’s seat.”

My jaw clenched but I forced it open. “I still couldn’t do it.”

His sigh and the drop of his head told me that I’d disillusioned him. Nonetheless, I figured it was probably for the best.

“You do realize that out of all of us, you are the least likely to become infected? With your ability to defy infirmity or weakness, and with your heightened senses, we are way more susceptible to being caught and bitten.”

He didn’t submit, but I saw the appreciation for my point in his expression.

“So…,” I added, “what are you really getting at?”

His head came up and I got the feeling that I’d caught him doing something he didn’t want me to figure out.

He hesitated, making me think I was going to get an honest answer, but he turned to begin walking again. He didn’t get far, spinning around and taking me by surprise. I thought he was going to launch into an argument. His sudden gestures definitely seemed to be going in that direction, so I tipped my chin up and readied myself for it. But he caught me off guard when he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. I lost track of what we’d been talking about instantly. The feel of his thighs against mine actually numbed my thought process. Before he spoke again, all I sensed was his smell—of fresh water and earth—exactly how I remembered him back at school.

“You’re important to me,” he stated bluntly. Then he opened his mouth to add something, shook his head to clear his thoughts, and appeared agitated. This was just before he leaned forward to place his lips on mine.

I had been kissed before. I had even
done
the kissing. I had even kissed Harrison once. It was a kiss far too quick and meant to determine if he could transmit the virus coursing through his blood and that had only served to open a floodgate of desire for him, but this kiss wasn’t like that one, or any of the others. It was more passionate, more urgent, more resolute. We lived in a different world now, when hesitation meant you risked never being given the opportunity again, because you might be dead the next day or the next minute. We were now forced to take advantage of the time and opportunity we had. And we did…unashamed and voraciously.

His lips took me, lifting me to a place I had never been, where I was aware of nothing else but him. I let them, giving into them completely, wholly embracing them, him, everything he offered. The heat from his body surrounded us, inviting me in, and I leaned into it, craving more. I found myself grasping at his exhilarating, sultry warmth, desperate for more of his lips, the weight of his embrace, the press of his still moist skin against my chest. And he responded to me, impatient in his insistence to feel the length of our bodies pressed together, hungering for my lips as if I were the air he needed to breathe.

When we were done, and neither of us had energy for words, I found him staring at me. His eyes were wide, making me think he’d never experienced anything like what we’d just done. That satisfied me, even while his mouth hung open, gasping for air, teasing me with the idea that he might come back for more.

When he didn’t, we silently set off to reach the building. Somewhere in the darkness our hands met and I wanted to find my way back into his arms. Instead, I was left to the strong, warmth of him surrounding my fingers, the sound of his clothes rustling as he moved and of his footsteps making their way across the saturated fallen leaves.

Either to better satisfy myself or because my subconscious was more astute than I gave it credit, I began replaying our kiss in my mind. At its memory, my mouth curved into a smile, but it faded when I realized something had been left unfinished.

“What were you going to say back there?”

“When?” he asked, leisurely.

It was nice to hear his voice without tension. If I knew that my next question would make it return, I would have thought twice about asking it.

“Before you kissed…,” I said, sensing the fire of it on my lips and started again. “Before you kissed me, you were going to say something. What was it?”

“I was…,” He hesitated, took on a serious demeanor, and then confessed something I wasn’t entirely sure he’d wanted to. “I was thinking that love is a brilliant emotion, life-altering and intense…”

“It is,” I agreed, because that was exactly how I felt about him. “But that’s not what you were going to say.”

He exhaled cautiously and paused still further while determining exactly how to answer. “I was…I was also thinking that love is perilous in its resolve. It will take someone to the brink, risking the very existence of the person who gave it life.” He glanced at me for my reaction, but I didn’t offer one. A few paces later, he came to a halt. “As dangerous as it is, I do love you, Kennedy. There’s no stopping that…”

My heart flipped at his statement, its intensity so powerful that I felt it in my bones, across the skin of my arms, in my very soul. It was a struggle to start walking again. “Yes,” I said, decidedly unwavering to the idea, “my love for you is perilous in its resolve.”

He chuckled quietly to himself. We had reached the building door and his hand rose to turn the knob, but he spoke before he opened it, making sure to keep our conversation private.

“Actually, I was talking about me…”

CHAPTER 3

T
HE BUILDING TURNED OUT TO BE
almost entirely empty and stood no bigger than a large closet. We found four barren brick walls inside broken only by a small horizontal window near the roof, a dusty black metal shelf stacked with miscellaneous field manuals, and a solitary wooden chair. Beverly had claimed it. A lantern flickered at her feet, casting light eerily across the front of Doc and Mei. They were standing over a duffel bag, which had been emptied of its contents.

It took Harrison and me a whole two steps to join them in assessing our newfound wealth. As we did this, Doc listed the inventory, which was disappointingly brief. “Two flashlights, a roll of duct tape, a box of matches, a screwdriver…Phillips head.”

“And an energy bar,” Mei added, holding out the remainder of it, a piece no bigger than a quarter. I took it, chewed, and swallowed before instantly regretting it. That little piece awakened my stomach to the fact that it had only had two small cupcakes in the last twenty-four hours, and it wanted more.

“Sorry, buddy,” Doc said glancing at Harrison. “No raw meat.”

He shrugged offhandedly and stooped down. “I think that’s going to be hard to come by.” Switching subjects, he said, “This is a good find. Sparse, but helpful.”

Beverly snorted. We glanced at her. She ignored us.

“Yeah,” Doc replied. “Yeah, helpful for sure.” He then stood awkwardly waiting for Harrison to elucidate.

“We can get a fire going with it, at least.”

Doc and Mei continued to stare blankly at him.

As he left the halo of light to pull the manuals off the shelf, Mei caught on and muttered, “Right…Right…”

Only then did I notice the puff of air coming from her lips as she spoke.

Before long, Mei and I had torn the pages from the manuals and crumpled them into a pile on the floor. Doc had opened the window at the ceiling and Harrison had broken apart the wooden chair. Beverly frowned at having to give up her seat but that was the extent of her participation.

The fire provided warmth, light, and a feeling of security. In fact, in the scant minutes I allowed myself to forget what was outside that door, I almost convinced myself we were a group of friends just camping out. Then I realized if that were true, we’d be outside staring at the stars from under the tree bows instead of harboring ourselves inside four brick walls.

As the flames took hold, we sat, huddled around them, and stared into the colorful flashes, raising our hands to warm them every once in a while.

“What team was that?” Doc asked, his concentration on the flames never wandering as he asked the question that apparently had been plaguing him.

One fleeting glance at him was all it took to interpret his thoughts: Those Infected could have been his teammates, and one of them could have been him.

Beverly didn’t bother to notice his discomfort, his concepts not applying to her, so she replied absentmindedly. “The Portage Huskies. Their quarterback’s mildly appealing.” She paused, frowned, and added, “Was…was mildly appealing. Not any longer, after what’s left of him out there.”

“They were…They were big…” Doc muttered, shaking his head in quiet disbelief.

Then the real question Doc had wanted to raise finally surfaced, but it was Mei who blurted it. “What are we doing here?” she asked, her tone steeped in irritation. “I mean we’ve just left a city where our families are looking for us…at least
I’d like to think they are
. We’re aimlessly walking down a highway with no destination, into areas that may or may not be infested. We have no help, no true defense, nothing… Why are we doing this?”