Sadie Walker Is Stranded (28 page)

“Ew!”

“Yeah … It wasn’t, er, fun? Well, hell, it
was
. It was crazy fun.” Noah laughed, tossing back his head. His hair had grown out and the waves were not as curly, more crimpled, like lasagna. “He hated it, I mean, obviously he hated it, but he always let us win, just once, then he’d chase us off and throw our G.I. Joes up in the trees.”

“You light up when you talk about them.”

He shrugged. “’Course I do.”

Noah began to whittle again, the knife squeaking quietly across the wood. “Think Shane would like a pig?”

“Don’t put yourself out,” I said, standing to collect the little boy in question.

He smiled, glancing up at me as I went. “It’s no trouble. I’ve never tried a pig before.”

*   *   *

At some point that whole
survive, survive, survive!
mantra disintegrated. It was somewhere between hearing Shane giggle for the first time in months and sitting on a blanket under the stars with Whelan. It was somewhere in there. I’m not exactly clear on the subtleties.

Before this becomes a rousing rendition of
How Sadie Got Her Groove Back
, there’s something I’ve been meaning to explain.

It’s not that I have trouble with men, all right? It’s that I have trouble with
me
. Carl, may he absolutely not rest in peace, is the perfect example of what I mean. Unfortunately, I can’t entirely blame my being with him on The Outbreak. I can, however, blame it on what I like to call The Poker Problem. I cannot play poker. I mean, technically I
know
how to play it, but I should never be allowed within twenty yards of a casino, or now, post-Outbreak, back alley games. I have the anti-gut, the anti-instinct. As soon as I have a decent hand I’m all in. I can’t help it. I get one whiff of success, however unlikely, and throw myself in one hundred percent. Idiotic? Yes. Pathological? Also yes. And The Poker Problem applies almost letter for letter to men. One good moment, one iota of chemistry and I’m pushing that pile of chips across the table like I’ve got a full house. It’s more probable that I have two pair, but that doesn’t matter. I’m all in, baby, committed, before I really think it through.

So that’s why Carl happened. And that’s why Whelan was terrifying. No seriously. Petrifying. He
looked
like a straight flush but maybe he was just a lousy pair of jacks. Either way, I was stupidly giddy around him. The thought
I want to grope his hair
actually occurred to me at one point during the evening, proving that I was not only horny to the point of atrophied intelligence, but that I was also becoming a creepy, creepy little fuck.

So here’s the romcom montage for your convenience: slightly romantic meal of overcooked fish on a ratty blanket under the clear, night sky. Brief moment of panic when I realized a fish bone was wedged between my two front teeth and I had to do the duck down dance of shame to shimmy it out with my napkin. Another, even briefer moment of panic when I thought that maybe he had lured me out away from the others to hack me into little pieces. Then a long, long moment of blushing and indignity while I realized that he was just being nice. And then the post-dinner, first-date awkward conversation that started with chummy, mutual explorations regarding past careers, family and “dreams.”

“Can I ask you something?” I was going for it. I had to. I couldn’t stand to sit there, huddling under my sweatshirt, pretending like I wasn’t freezing my fucking ass off.

“You can.”

“I need to either go get a blanket or press up against you. And I thought I’d ask first because…” Oh, right, now I needed to come up with actual reason. “Because I didn’t want to just invade your space and hope for the best.”

“We could go inside.” It wasn’t a sexy suggestion. There would have to be empty cabins for that to be a come on.

“Maybe some other time,” I replied. “With the rate people are dropping dead around here one will be free by the end of the week.”

He didn’t laugh. Neither did I.

“Sorry. It’s not funny. I’m just scared. And nervous. Very nervous.”
And I say shit-brained things.

“No, you’re right,” he said firmly. Then he was closer and I was getting a lot warmer. “I was thinking … that house we saw? I feel like we should go back and look inside.”

“I … do
not
want to do that.”

He chuckled and the rumbling heat of it scorched a path against my side. I rested back against his shoulder, finding it was easier to sit that way and have an excuse to stare up at the sky and not at his dizzying smile.

“I haven’t said anything to the others. I don’t want to cause a panic … I just can’t see the girls and Cassandra being a coincidence. Something is wrong and just waiting for another casualty doesn’t seem right. It’s not in my nature. It’s not in yours.”

“And how do you know that, sir? You haven’t known me for very long.”

Whelan laughed again, and this time it came with a bonus hand nestled up against my hip. If we squeezed any tighter together we’d have to share a last name.

“I know that you dove after a stranger to try and save them.”

“Yeah … he turned out to be a real twat, though.”

“Well, that’s a given. But the fact remains—you saved him.” Either I was imagining things or his lips were brushing against the back of my head. Goodness gracious, staving off the cold wasn’t much of an issue anymore. “And I know you were so desperate to get back to your nephew and your friends that you tried to steal a canoe in the middle of the night with two busted feet.”

“I’m … not actually sure
what
that says about my nature, but I don’t think it’s anything good.”

“To me it says you’re brave. Look at what you did for me, for Danielle…”

Son of a bitch. He had a point. But most of those things just felt like recklessness and tragedy narrowly averted by sheer luck. “I don’t feel brave. I just feel less afraid than I did the day before.”

“That’s a start.”

Again, the details are fuzzy, but I know a hand came up and tucked under my chin. Then I was staring down those unbelievable blue eyes and realizing his ears weren’t so funny that I couldn’t get over them and we kissed. If I had been listening, and I really wasn’t, I might have heard the tiniest of excited shrieks from the direction of the camp. Somebody was up past their bedtime. Andrea, probably, or maybe Banana … or possibly both.

The cold disappeared, the outside world and its noises and danger reduced to the warm lips on mine and the hand holding me snugly around the waist. When he pulled back I couldn’t help but smile dreamily. But then I jerked back, hard, noticing something dangling near the corner of my right eye. It was a strand of hair with a gray thing the size of a chickpea. I shrieked and batted it away. A little slug bounced harmlessly onto Whelan’s thigh. He laughed and flicked it away into the night.

Oh, jeebus. Strike me dead, just do it right now before I have to look him in the eye. My face was on fire, my throat so tight I couldn’t do anything but cough out a relieved, mortified laugh. It could have been worse. It could’ve been a spider. Sadie Walker is Scheherazade, performing one night only the Dance of a Thousand Fails.

“That was … Yeah.” I stared resolutely at the sand. “If you want to get up right now and never speak to me again I totally understand.”

“Forget it. Those things get in everything. I woke up with one hanging out of my nostril once.”

“
What?
” When I looked up, Whelan was smiling so hard at my expense it made his eyes close. “No. Oh. That’s gross. Even for a joke that’s too gross.”

“Oh, come on. Everyone loves brain slugs.”

“I swear, I will mark this down in my diary: ‘Romantic evening or
the most
romantic evening? To be determined.’”

We kissed again. This time when we pulled away there were no rogue slugs to destroy the moment. I fought the urge to look away, because I had done that before and because I was done with that, with hiding. And when you stop to look closely you notice things—freckles you hadn’t seen before, creases around the eyes from laughing, scars,
details
 …

“Since September, things have gone from bad to worse,” Whelan said gently, embarking on what, at first, sounded like a bad country song. “But the one nice thing so far is having a night like this. Just talking like this.”

“The kissing isn’t so bad either,” I ventured.

“Sort of freeing, don’t you think?”

I nodded.

“I don’t have to ask you on some painful first date at an overpriced dump,” he continued. “I don’t have to silently judge you for ordering a salad instead of a steak. We can cut right to what matters—brain-slug jokes.”

“Okay, first of all,” I said, turning toward him, “If you can’t laugh at a brain-slug joke, then what
can
you laugh at? Second, I would never order a salad on a first date. That’s just false advertising. And third, is it wrong if I sort of miss that? Do you realize that this is the best I’ll probably ever look? Just once it’d be nice to get dressed up. I wish you could see me in a dress, with a bit of makeup and something besides slugs in my hair.”

It was a good thing there were no mirrors around. I couldn’t even imagine the state of my hair. Whelan used a reflective belt buckle to shave. I’m not sure I would ever have the balls to drag a straight razor over my skin with only an inch-by-two-inch square to show me the way.

Whelan’s shoulder shook with silent laughter. “Your hair is fine. The slug was a fluke.”

“Once upon a time, it wasn’t just an indecipherable mess. It was cute. It had character. It was
me
. Now it’s just a … I don’t know … A stupid brown mop.”

“A
charming
brown mop.”

Gosh. The blush from the slug incident had faded, replaced by a different kind of rosy glow. As we hovered there in silence, I started to get why so many songs are written about eyes.

“If I kiss you again, do you promise that absolutely no brain slugs will wriggle out of your nose?”

“You bet.”

*   *   *

“Oh, Lord Jesus, what did you
do
to the man?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Cornered. Cornered by a pretty girl with a bright bandana and even brighter eyes. And the irony of Banana drinking her morning coffee out of a chipped mug that read
I KISS AND TELL
while pinning me down like a cheetah pins a gazelle was almost too ridiculous to handle.

“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed is an understatement, sweetie,” Banana went on, batting her lashes and mincing around the fire pit toward me. “He’s a whole new man this morning.”

“Yes, I am truly amazing,” I said, rolling my eyes as hard as I could without causing permanent damage. “Illustrator by day, killer vixen by night!”

“Is this what he puts up with to earn your womanly wiles? You deflecting everything with a bad joke?”

“More or less, yeah.”

Banana smiled, or rather beamed, literally, the supernatural charm of her grin actually making me feel uncomfortably warm. She slithered up to me, wrapping one arm around my waist while she chugged down her coffee like it was Powerade. “Sweetie pie, whatever you did, please do it some more.”

Now that was advice I could actually follow.

But not before I earned another slow and mellow night with Whelan by doing some actual work. He was fixated on the idea of returning to the cabin we had found. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I knew I was a logical choice to accompany him—I had seen it before and might be able to help retrace the route. Andrea, Moritz and Noah would stay behind with Shane, while Nate, Whelan, Banana and I suited up to go into the woods. Stefano and Danielle had overslept, apparently, but would be expected to spend the day fishing. The slugs and ticks were bad, hanging on despite the chilly weather, so we bundled up for the cold and for protection.

“What’re you expecting to find?” Nate asked as we slowly approached the tree line. It was like passing beyond a wall, a gate, leaving the safety of the known and the light and giving ourselves over to the dark uncertainty of the forest. It was blustery, leaves and sand whirling across the beach, dissipating as the gusts hit the trees and dispersed, winds breaking on the trunks like waves on the shore.

The crisp leaves above us rattled as branches creaked and groaned, protesting the wind.

“I don’t know,” Whelan replied, readjusting the rifle at his shoulder. A sweatshirt hood obscured the soft waves of his hair. “I’ll know it when I find it.”

“Like porn,” Banana mused softly.

“What?” Whelan didn’t sound amused, or in the mood to be lighthearted.

“Nothing.”

Behind us, just as the trees and shrubbery swallowed up our view of the beach, I heard Stefano calling to the others, his voice raised to a shout.

Progress was slow, hindered by unruly branches and my thickly wrapped feet. Even bandaged and protected by weathered boots they still ached. It was tempting to use the pain as an excuse to stay behind, but curiosity compelled me and so did the feeling that I wanted to know what was in that house. What if they saw something but didn’t tell us when they came back? I wanted to know. I wanted to be part of the inner circle.

After ten minutes or so of crunching through the unwieldy growth and piles of shifting leaves, we began to find broken branches, twigs, evidence of others traveling through the forest. Then blood, drips of it here and there, on leaf beds, on soil, on the cracked sticks that poked out from the tree trunks. Whelan slowed, his shoulders bunching up tensely as they always did when he sensed danger.

“
Fuck,
” I heard Nate breathe. He came up beside me and stared down at the droplets of blood marking a distinct trail.

“Drag marks,” Whelan said, keeping his voice low in case any undead were lurking nearby. “Do you see them?”

“Yes,” I whispered, watching as the blood marks on the ground became swipes, wide and uneven, like brushstrokes.

“We’re close,” Whelan added. Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better about the blood.

“Someone’s living in the house,” I said suddenly, the idea so clear, so obvious that I felt like a dumb ass for not saying it earlier.