Surge (60 page)

It’s about thirty minutes later, when John pulls into one of the parking lots to the outlets. The stores are spread about, so we decide to pick one district, and stick to it. John settles the groups, having Carlos, Danny and himself with the girls; while Oscar and Tommy split off to gather goods from the Kittery Trading Post. They chose the Trading Post since it’s located less than a quarter mile from the outlets, and they think it’ll have more of the things that we need, as opposed to the outlet stores.

As soon as the groups disappear in their designated directions, I turn to find Olivia and Cory already suiting up. Both have their own sets of throwing knives, Cory a silenced gun, and Olivia has her machete. Olivia fishes around in her backpack, before coming out with her whistle, and slides it on as she looks to Cory. He nods to say he’s ready, before he opens the slider door, while Olivia hands Morris off to Leonard. The cat doesn’t even hiss at the old man, as she settles him on Leonard’s lap.

“I hope you don’t plan on leaving me behind,” I sulk, like the third wheel. Olivia shakes her head and passes me the crossbow. I smile as I take it, until she points to the remaining people in the van. Which besides Leonard, includes Akio and Mike. “You expect me to sit here, while you two go gallivanting around injured?”

Olivia nods and gives me a pleading look. Dammit, how the hell can I say no to that? I huff out a sigh and nod. “Fine, but you two come back within thirty minutes, or I’m coming after you.”

“Listen, Superman,” Cory begins. “We can handle a small run by ourselves, you just keep these defenseless citizens safe.”

“Defenseless, my wrinkled ass,” Leonard says affronted from the back. Mike concurs, but Akio looks indifferent.

I look at my mighty midget, who should be resting after having surgery just a few hours ago, and her partner in crime; who is still battling smoke inhalation. What if something happened to one of them? I know that if one went down, the other would undoubtedly go down with them, not a comforting thought. Olivia waves a hand in front of my face. I meet her eyes and she puts a hand on her chest to say that she’ll be fine, then points at Cory.

“Cory’s still coughing,” I say. “How can he outrun a pack, if he can’t breathe properly? You too, for that matter.” Olivia pulls out her tucked in chain for the whistle, and waves it at me. “I know, it harms the wheezers, but you’re wheezing yourselves.”

“Jared, we’ll be
fine
,” Cory stresses. “We’re going to a few stores, so we’ll be back in less than an hour.”

“I said thirty minutes,” I hiss and Cory rolls his eyes.

“Fine, thirty minutes,” he revises. “Come on, Livs, I bet he’s already started counting.” I did, but I still scowl at the bastard for being an assumptive prick. Olivia goes to turn away, but I grab her hand and pull her in for a hug.

“Stay safe,” I whisper, and she nods before I let her go. Olivia pulls back and motions to say,
‘You too, Mouth.’
“I will, now go, before I come with you.”

Spinning away from me, Olivia looks around the stranded parking lot, it’s full of abandoned cars and trash; but nothing alive, so she jogs ahead of Cory and they disappear around the corner. I force myself to breathe through the panic, and turn back to the van. Sitting in the front, I make sure the crossbow is locked and loaded, before I pop my feet on the dash.

The radio’s off now that John took the keys. The controlling bastard most likely thought that I would start riding around in search of supplies, and the silence is irritating me. It’s only been about two minutes, before I can’t take it anymore, so I pull my feet down and open the passenger door. Walking to the back, I pull out the hose and gas tank, before going to the slider.

“I’m just going to collect some more gas,” I say and point at the nearby cars. “No one moves from this car, and I mean
no
one.” I give a pointed look at a fidgeting Leonard, who’s since placed Morris on Olivia’s empty chair; where the cat is now napping carelessly.

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Leonard demands. “Sit here, and take a nap like the lazy cat?”

“Actually...” I trail off when Leonard scowls. “Fine, hop up front, and whistle to me if you see anything coming.”

Leonard grins as he climbs his way to the front, perfectly fine with getting his way, or so he thinks. Having him sit here and feel useful, will hinder him from getting out and wandering around. Therefore, I can actually do something useful like collect gas, and not have to worry about a man; who is well past his prime, pushing himself beyond his limits just to spite me. As soon as Leonard is situated up front, I head off toward the cars.

Approaching the first vehicle, a small older Ford model, I flip the gas tank open and unscrew the cap. Inserting the hose, I give the other end a good suck and remove my mouth quickly. Putting my end of the hose inside the portable gas carrier, I wait for it to fill. The jug only holds five gallons, but this car fills it halfway. Removing the other end from the car, I glance around to make sure that there’s no movement, before walking over to the next one.

Using the same process, I siphon the gas from a Toyota to fill the jug the rest of the way. The tank had more than the container had room for, so I hold my end up when it starts getting close to the top, in order to end the flow. Jogging back to the van, I ignore my stinging hands, and dump the contents into our van’s tank.

The van can hold almost thirty gallons, so It takes about half a dozen cars to fill it to capacity. I make sure that the jug is full as a future reserve, and put it in the back, tying it down with a cargo strap to prevent spillage. A glance at my watch tells me that it only took ten minutes to complete the task. Dammit, it felt like an hour. Shaking out some of the tension in my shoulders, I decide to kill the last twenty minutes searching the now gasless cars for any supplies that we might be able to use. And if Olivia doesn’t show up within the next ten, I’ll drag myself off in the direction they headed, and search them out.

Game plan set in stone, I run over to a minivan. You’d be surprised what soccer moms keep stowed in their vehicles in case of emergency; of the temper tantrum variety, not apocalyptic, mind you. I’ve found a smorgasbord of goods, ranging from band-aids to snacks galore, in various spots like glove compartments and trunks. I even found that one mom was packing heat, with a .356 magnum in a case in her trunk. So, Super Mommy was packing heat for protection, or she was planning to off her cheating son of a bitch of a husband for sleeping with his assistant. Either way, I gave it to John, since I already had my dad’s 9mm. Knowing that they usually keep the good stuff in the back, I head there and pull open the door to the trunk, before jumping back at least six feet.

“Mother fucker!” I shout.

Stepping back, I pull out my hunting knife to ward off the wheezer kid baring it’s bloody jack o’ lantern teeth at me. It’s then I see the open slider, that he must have climbed in through, in order to rip into the rotten corpse on the floor; since he was chowing on it as if it were a Ho-Ho. The kid was probably only five or six when he became infected, so he’s under four feet tall, with a sprinkling of blonde hair still attached to his head. His torn Transformer t-shirt, and filthy jean shorts hang loosely off his smelly frame, as he hops out of the trunk and lands on all fours.

I know that he’s no longer human; that he’s more beast than man, but he was a kid not so long ago, and it makes what I have to do a hell of a lot harder. Fighting the urge to puke, I squeeze the handle of my hunting knife, and feel blisters pop on my hands. The sting that the action brings, distracts me from thinking about how completely wrong it is that I have to exterminate a little boy. Taking a deep breath, I dodge the tiny, gnarled hand taking a swipe at me, and spin so I’m facing the back of the kid’s nearly bald head. Seeing the bite mark on his neck, is what cements it for me. Crouching slightly so that I can reach him, I line up my knife with a kill point.

“Sorry, little dude,” I whisper and mercifully give him a quick end, with a knife speared through his spine, and twist it on the way out.

The body drops the rest of the pitiful two feet to the floor, barely making a noise when fifty pounds of dead weight hits the tarred ground of the parking lot. Rubbing a hand over my face to try to unsuccessfully erase that image from my mind, I jump about a foot off the ground, when a small hand touches my back from behind.

Thinking it’s another wheezer kid, I spin around and swing out with my knife. If Olivia didn’t have cat-like flexes, I most likely would have just unknowingly murdered the woman I love, instead of only cutting off two inches of braided hair.

Dropping my knife so fast it’s like I’ve been burned, I lean down to grab Olivia by the shoulders, and pull her up. My eyes scan her head, neck and face, before gripping the end of her unraveling braid; which is now missing it’s holder because I chopped it off. Since I find no new injuries, I go to meet her eyes; but don’t get that far, because I notice the absolute pain etched into her features. Olivia’s eyes are squeezed tight, lips are pursed, and one hand’s balled around the handle of her machete; while the other is gripping the side of her tracheostomy tube. She can’t even whimper, or curse me out for causing her pain.

“Fuck! I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you. Are you alright?” Olivia gives me a curt nod that I know is complete bull shit. “No, you’re not. Damn it, I knew you weren’t healed enough to deal with this shit, but it looks like you only have to avoid me, and you’ll be fine.” Olivia’s pain filled eyes meet mine, as she pats her chest. “No, it’s not your fault, I almost killed you.” She shakes her head and holds a hand to her ear. “I didn’t hear you, because you can’t speak; once again, not your fault.” She goes to try and deny it, so I cup her cheek and hold her gaze. “It was an accident. I should have been paying attention, especially after I just saw this one, but he was just so friggin tiny...”

Olivia holds two gloved fingers over my mouth. It looks like she got what she needed, because she not only has a new set of leather gloves, but the matching black jacket and pants. I’ll ask about those later, since I have to keep my eyes focused on reading her hand signals. She points to the miniature wheezer, and holds up one finger, before pointing at me. I nod to answer that it is the first wheezer kid I’ve encountered. I’ve seen a few half-eaten corpses of kids, which made me vomit, but never any that were walking around infected.

Olivia points at herself, then the corpse, and waves her hand to say that she’s seen lots of them. Her eyes are pained and filled with understanding as she motions that
‘it makes her sick to see them.’
No, I can’t read sign language; nor does it look like Olivia is using the formal one, but it’s easy to understand her when she points to an example, holds her stomach, and rolls her finger around to say
‘every time.’

“I almost couldn’t do it,” I admit.

Olivia nods, before taking my hand and pulling me toward her for a hug. Removing her hand from my back, I feel as she rubs a soothing hand down the back of my head, and to my neck. It’s times like these that make it clear to me how much of a great mom she would have been, had her childhood dream come true. Which then reminds me how she would have been one already, it weren’t for a sick fucker named Cole.

The name alone makes my hackles raise, and my protective instincts heighten with awareness. When I see him, that fucker will rue the day he even looked at my tiny Tomb Raider. And I will be seeing him. Olivia may think that she only has Cory as an ally after she escorts the group to safety, but she’s wrong. I’ll hand cuff myself to her ankle if I must, but I will be joining their two person duo seeking vengeance for all they’ve lost.

I may have never met Travis, but I know Cory, and from what I’ve heard about the guy; I respect him enough to assist in avenging his murder. Not to mention that the same twisted fuck that killed him, is personally responsible for traumatizing my badass, and ruining her dreams. Then, once the demented psycho is buried six feet under, I’ll convince Olivia that she can rebuild new dreams and start life anew; hopefully with me as a permanent fixture.

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