Resurrection (Eden Book 3) (29 page)

“You know.”

“No. I don’t.”

“I mean, did you ever, you know, relieve yourself thinking of someone related to us?”

“David, are you asking me if I ever jerked off thinking about one of our aunts or cousins?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Well, that is a peculiar question.”

“I know it is.”

“But I’ll tell you, David. The answer to your question is yes.”

Red often got a kick out of the brothers’ raillery. But not today. Not after listening to Cosmo and his folk rampaging and presumably destroying their camp. Their home.

She concentrated on the path ahead of them. Rodriguez and MacKenzie led with the zombies, the undead smelling their way. The trail had split about an hour before, with two sets of boot prints heading west, the other two north. In each set was a pair of larger feet and a pair of smaller feet, so Red knew they had coupled off, one man and one woman. She figured the brother and sister were sticking together, so that meant the trail their zombies followed belonged to the other woman and the man Red had promised to kill.

“You did? Damn, Keith. Which one?”

“Aunt Emma.”

“Aunt Emma.” David snickered to himself. “I remember she had a great ass.”

“She sure did. Nice tits too.”

“Did you ever feel…I don’t know, guilty afterwards?”

“Oh, there was only the one time. And I can’t be sure it was her.”

“What are you talking about, Keith?”

“You remember that costume party—the masquerade when we were, what, seventeen, eighteen?”

“Yeah. I dressed up as Deney Terrio.”

“Right. Well, I…how should I put this? I had relations with a woman that night, and I’m thinking it must have been Aunt Emma.”

“What do you mean you’re
thinking
it must have been Aunt Emma?”

“Well, we were all in costume, right? So I don’t know for sure that it was her.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, you’re not going to make me go and reveal all the sordid details now, are ya?”

“You’re damned right I am. I asked you if you ever jacked off thinking of someone related to us, and you admitted you
fucked
Aunt Emma. Do tell.”

“I said it
might
have been Aunt Emma. Probably was,” Keith granted. “And I didn’t fuck her. She blew me.”

“Keith, brother, you are fucked up.”

“We were all drinking. It was dark. I didn’t know who it was. She had on that bustier and masquerade mask…”

“You guys are sick,” MacKenzie yelled back to them.

“No keep going,” encouraged Rodriguez. “I’m loving this.”

“I was only, like,
what
?” Keith scratched his temple. “Seventeen, eighteen? What’d I know? I sure made that pussy hum though.”

“Did you? How’d it sound?”

“Like this:
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
—”

“Would you two shut the hell up?” Red snapped.

“Hey,” Keith sounded stung, “he asked me.”

“Even if we get away,” Troi said to Evan a few hours later, “…we don’t have our Geiger counters. We have no supplies. How will we know—”

“Don’t worry about that now.” Evan sipped water from his hydration pack.

The path they followed wound its way through a thicket of trees, bordered on one side by the exposed granite facing of a rock outcropping. There had been no traps, no zombies, no sign of whoever might be following them.

Evan would never admit it to Troi, but he was scared. He was wounded, and though the wound caused him no real pain, he knew it would give them away wherever they went. Zombies could smell wounds. They could smell blood.

Troi had been very brave tagging along with him. He could tell she was frightened, even more so than he. But her presence here on the winding path reassured him. They had both worked up a sweat and were warm, though the day was cool. Troi had removed her hoodie and Evan was struck again by the size of her breasts.

“Do you really think we have a chance, Evan?”

“
Whu
—? Yeah,” Evan shook his head. Thinking of Troi’s bust at a time like this. What the hell was wrong with him? “Thing is, we have to keep moving, no matter what. We can’t stop.”

“We can’t stop.”

“We stop, they catch up to us.”

“We can’t stop.” Troi repeated it like a mantra.

“That’s right.”

“We’ve come this far,” Troi said sometime later. “And nothing bad has happened to us.”

Evan agreed.

“We’ve seen all sorts of…bad things,” Troi worked it out. “But you, me, Anthony and Rye, we’re all okay still, right?”

“Right.”

“I do feel bad about Krieger. I feel really bad about him.”

“I know you do,” Evan paused to tie his bootlace. “I do too.” Troi slowed somewhat but pressed on ahead of him.

“You were very brave back in that barn, Ev. When you were ready to trade punches with that thing after you’d stuck it in the back with the pitchfork.”

“I didn’t have anything else to hit it with.”

“Still, you were very brave.”

“Look who’s talking. You know how brave you are coming with me?” Evan touched his leg. “This is leading them right to us.”

“It’s not you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re not the only one bleeding.”

“Huh?”

“It’s that time of the month.”

“Oh.” He thought about it. “Oh. So maybe it is better that you and me stick together.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The deadfall trap was triggered when Troi unthinkingly brushed a low lying branch out of her way. Evan heard the snap and rumble and lunged forward, pushing Troi out of the way. The boulder had looked relatively settled on the granite outcropping above their heads, but as soon as Troi kicked the insignificant-looking limb, the stone shifted, gravity did its thing, and tons of solid granite came rolling down on them.

Troi was knocked down as the boulder tumbled away. She pushed up onto the palms of her hands and her knees and wiped the dirt from her nose and mouth. She stood and looked for Evan, fearing unreasonably that the boulder had somehow picked him up and carried him off along its path into the trees.

It hadn’t.

Evan lay, broken, on the path. The rock had crushed him as it came down. It had run him over, pressing him into the earth, but somehow he was still alive.

“Ev!” Troi sat down beside him, afraid to touch him, thinking he was dead. When he sputtered, blood flecking the sides of his mouth, she knew he wasn’t.

“Ev? Ev?”

“Troi…” He looked up at her. “I can’t…feel nothing.”

Evan’s body was bent at an awkward angle, his legs mashed into the dirt. His arms were bent in places and directions they shouldn’t have been. His head wasn’t moving. Only his eyes were. And his mouth, barely.

“Ev, that should have been me—that should have—” Troi quieted to hear what he was saying. Evan’s voice was little more than a murmur.

“…gotta go, Troi…”

“I can’t leave you here. I can’t just leave you here.”

“Finished…I’m…done.” Evan coughed feebly and more blood spotted his cheek in the direction his head was turned.

Evan went silent, and Troi thought he had died.

“Get out…Troi…go…”

He had not died. Yet Troi knew he would soon. She had never seen a living person contorted the way Evan was.

“Oh, Ev…” She reached down and touched his forehead, and as she did so he closed his eyes, a relieved look stealing over his face. Unsure whether he was dead or alive, Troi scampered away down the trail.

“Well shit,” said Keith. “Here’s one we won’t be killing anytime soon.”

“Anytime at all is more like it.” David sounded disappointed.

The brothers stood on the trail, above Evan’s smashed body. Red, MacKenzie, and Rodriguez came and stood with them. MacKenzie and Rodriguez pulled back on the chains securing the two zombies they handled.

“Keep those things the fuck away from me,” David said. It didn’t matter to him that they were muzzled.

“Boulder?” Red looked at the indentation in the path, an indentation that included Evan’s broken form.

“Yeah.” Keith looked off into the trees, looking for the rock. “I can’t believe they fell for that one.”

“Remember how long it took us to get that rock up in place?” David asked him.

“Yeah, I certainly do.” Keith smiled because he could smile about it now. Back when they’d had to reset the trap—how long ago was that? A year or two?—it had been hard work that brought no smiles with it.

Red was livid. She’d wanted to finish this one herself. It’d been personal. And here he was, dead before her. Squashed like a bug.

“I like his hat.” Rodriguez sounded like he wanted it.

“It is nice.” MacKenzie frowned, having to yank back on the chain he held securing the zombie.

“Well,” said Red. “This was the wounded one. The other one went up the trail that way.”

“You thinking it’s the girl with the big jugs?” The way Keith asked it, Red knew he wasn’t interested in the woman’s breasts in some salacious way. He was just cracking wise. But the way Rodriguez’ face lit up when Keith said it—it obviously meant something different to the other man.

“Yeah.”

“The brother and sister wouldn’t separate,” said David, “would they?”

“Would you?” Red asked David of himself and his brother. “This way.”

“What do you think dad is doing at home right now?” Anthony asked Riley.

They had slowed to a relatively fast walk. There was only so much sunlight left to them this afternoon, and they had to be careful to get as far as they could as safely as they could. The density of the trees thinned and thickened as they passed through copses and glens.

“He’s probably drinking with Uncle Brent,” said Riley, and her brother laughed. She thought it was touching that, after the events of the last week—with the new knowledge Anthony had acquired—he still considered the man they lived with their dad. But that’s what he was. He had raised them and cared for them and tried to do the best by them as he could, never allowing his own personal flaws to get in the way.

“Krieger wasn’t kidding, was he?” asked Anthony. “When he said there were some people out here we wouldn’t want to meet.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“They don’t scare you?”

“They scare me to death, Anthony.”

“You do a good job of not showing it.”

“I don’t want to give them the satisfaction. You cold, little brother?”

The full bite of fall was in the air.

“Sure, I’m cold. But I got my hat.” Anthony tugged on a string hanging off the ear flap of his beanie. Riley grinned. “You know, Rye, you were always…tougher than me.”

“Now you’re talking nonsense.”

“No, really. I don’t mean it bad about me. It just is what it is.”

“I took taekwondo at an early age.”

“No, I don’t mean that. I just mean all around tough. You’re bad ass, sis.”

“Older sisters are supposed to be tough. You know what brats little brothers can be.” Riley reached out as they walked and gave Anthony a little push. Her brother scoffed. “Dad raised me tough. He knew what kind of world this was.”

“Rye, dad raised you tough because he knew there were plenty of guys just like him in it.” The siblings shared a laugh at this. “But you were tough to begin with.”

“Yeah, well if we don’t stop talking and keep moving faster, you’re going to see just how un-tough your sister here is when those jerks catch up to us.”

“I bet you can kick their asses.”

“Not fifteen of them.”

“You think they followed our trail?” Anthony risked a look back behind them, but saw no one.

“Whether they did or didn’t, we have to assume they did and work off that assumption.”

They walked for what seemed like another hour. They crested one last rise, ignoring the beautiful sun setting behind them, before wending their way through a plain spotted with the occasional tree.

“Stick close to the trees,” warned Riley. She didn’t like the fact that there were few trunks and branches to mask their passage here.

“I know this is going to sound stupid, sis,” Anthony breathed in deep the autumn air, “but I kind of feel like, no matter how bad it gets, we’re going to be okay.”

“I’m glad you’re optimistic.” There was a trace of sardonicism in Riley’s voice, but, in truth, she was glad. And just as truthfully, she was feeling somewhat safer since they had split from their friends. Riley hoped Troi and Evan were going to be okay. Riley knew Troi had been especially shaken up by the events of the last few days. Maybe no more so than herself, but Troi was too genuine to hide how she was feeling.

Riley thought it was a good thing Troi was with Evan and Evan was with Troi. Riley knew her primary responsibility was seeing herself and her brother out of this situation. When she’d volunteered to accompany Anthony on this insane trek, she’d known—intellectually—that she might find herself in just this type of situation, facing terrible odds, the lives of herself and her brother in jeopardy.

“I mean, just think about it,” continued Anthony. “It’s like…too much like the stars all lined up just the right way, if you know what I mean? First with Ev finding Mickey and the photograph. Then us finding Gwen. And Krieger.
Mad Jack
.” Anthony sniggered and his sister did likewise.

“That’s almost as good as
coon
,” Riley said.

“Yeah, it is.” Anthony was silent for a moment, introspective. “You know, my clothes are damp and stuck to my body, but I’m alive, and my sis is alive, and we’re together. And that’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is. Slow down, you’re getting ahead of me.”

“Come on, you’ve been walking point all day. All yesterday too. I’m being vigilant, okay?” Riley shrugged and let Anthony take the lead since he wanted to. She continued to peer at the path ahead of them for signs of a trap, for anything slightly amiss.

Anthony spoke over his shoulder to his sister. “Do you think dad will ever find someone he can be happy with? I mean,
really
happy?”

“No. He’s happy with us.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I think the thing is, dad’s not happy with himself.”

“Why not?”

“For whatever reasons. He’s dad. You know how hard it’s supposed to be to figure out your parents.”