Thicker than Blood (22 page)

“Wheat,” I corrected her tersely, annoyed
with both her and Alex, and their nonstop bickering.

“What?” she demanded. “Who cares what it is.
Jesus, Lei!”

I shrugged. “You should care.”

“Why?” she demanded, practically shouting the
word at me.

“
Because,” I shouted back, feeling my
temper rising. “We can eat it,
Eve
!”

This seemed to give her pause, and slowly the
anger drained from her features. “We can?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. We can eat the
berries. We need to soak them first, but after that they’ll be
edible.”

“How do you know that?” Evelyn asked. She
narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me, as if I’d purposely kept this
wheat-berry secret from her for our entire friendship for some
nefarious purpose, and my just now revealing this wicked knowledge
meant I must have more secrets, maybe bigger, badder ones, secrets
that could possibly change the course of the entire world.

I snarled my answer. “I used to read,
remember? Books? You remember them?”

“FUCK!” Alex suddenly bellowed, startling me.
Silent now, Evelyn and I watched as his fist took a nosedive onto
the hood of the truck. “Fuck!” he shouted again, and again went his
fist.

“Fucking great,” Evelyn spat. Spinning
around, she gave us her back.

I glanced between them both. At Evelyn, who
was basically pouting in a metaphorical corner, and Alex who was
throwing an adult-sized temper tantrum, taking it out on our only
means of transportation. Out of gas or not, the thing still
ran.

I took a deep, not-so-calming breath, full of
hot air and truck fumes, which only served to further agitate me.
Turning, I squinted down the highway, looking for anything at all,
some form of shelter where we could rest and regain our bearings,
maybe have some blessed privacy from one another. Yet, there was
nothing. An endless stretch of nothing.

Sighing, I took a step toward the wheat,
the golden stalks at least four feet high, nearly reaching my
chest, and ran my hand over the top of their soft and silky stems.
It would take ten, maybe twelve hours to soak them, but then they’d
be edible. And something was always better than nothing.

I gritted my teeth, my hand suddenly
clenching around one of the stalks. Crumpling the grains in my
fist, I wondered how many times I would have to tell myself that,
to try to convince myself of it before I actually began to believe
it.

How much more surviving for the moment
would we be forced to endure? Would it ever let up? Was there
anywhere safe to go? Was there anything left at all?

As I was standing there, angry at the world
and feeling sorry for myself, something touched the toe of my
sneaker, and a low growl erupted from within the thick of the wheat
stalks.

Seeing the bony, blackened fingers reaching
for me, the dirty, nearly skinless arm parting through the wheat, I
jumped backward, a scream forming on my lips. But the scream never
came.

The infected was little more than a skeleton,
really. Most of the skin on its face was missing, along with one
eye, and it was using the earth to pull itself toward me. As its
fingertips found purchase in the ground and it came slithering into
view, I realized that it no longer had any legs, or even much of a
torso left. Where its rib cage ended there was little that
remained, only leathery ribbons of hanging flesh and dried-up
entrails.

As it came for me, I continued backing away.
Every inch it gained, I afforded myself a foot of distance, all the
while staring down it, feeling scared, but something more than just
fear. The raw sensation returned to me, the impression that my
insides, my emotions, had all been sandpapered, rubbed clean of
their protective coating and left open, exposed and bleeding.

Anger, pure and unadulterated rage began
to well within me, making me feel too small for my body, my skin
suddenly too tight, and feeling close to bursting. I just knew I
couldn’t take another setback, stomach another letdown before I was
going to explode. Because this couldn’t be all that was left, just
this rot and decay, this abomination of what once was, all this…all
this…godforsaken—because yes, if there was a God, he had surely
forsaken us all—
nothing
.

Nothing. There was nothing left. Just me
and Evelyn and Alex, searching for something we would never find,
and
this
thing
, this nightmarish
monster creeping out of a beautiful wheat field, intent only on one
thing. To destroy, destroy, destroy.

What did it matter anymore? What did any of
it matter? How much longer before there was no more food to be
found, before any and all shelters crumbled to dust? How much
longer did we have before we too succumbed to the death of this
world?

My scream, the one waiting on the tip of my
tongue, finally bubbled free. A garbled and meaty-sounding
explosion of anguish and suffering—and most of all rage—ripped its
way up through my lungs, singeing and searing whatever it touched,
and was sent soaring into the world.

Then I yanked my blade free from my belt,
dropped to my knees, and sent it straight into the exposed skull of
the infected. Not once, not twice, not three times. The pain, the
fury, the fear, it all burst forth, all consuming and all
controlling, and my hand, gripping tightly to that tiny knife, sent
the blade into that monster’s skull an uncountable number of times.
Over and over again until I could literally feel something inside
me snap, break, split wide open, and then…I no longer felt so
constrained, so uncomfortable inside my own skin.

Breathing hard, partially blinded from the
sweat dripping into my eyes, I got to my feet and sheathed my
blade. Both Evelyn and Alex were instantly at my side. Alex kicked
the dead infected, ensuring it was truly dead, and Evelyn wrapped
her arms around me. They expected tears, I supposed, or me to
collapse weakly into their arms, needing comfort and soothing. And
then they would oh-so-sweetly tuck me into the backseat of the
truck, cooing at me about getting some sleep and feeling better
when I woke.

But I didn’t cry; I wasn’t sad. And when they
reached for me, I pushed them away, pushed right past them and
headed for the truck. Hastily, I grabbed what little belongings
we’d appropriated along our journey, shouldering a tattered
backpack, wrapping my hand around a plastic milk carton a third of
the way full with dirty water, tucking a hammer into my belt, and
then I turned to face them.

They still stood where I’d left them,
standing in the middle of the road, the dead infected at their
feet. And I swore to myself that if either one of them were to say
a word, be it soothing or comforting or full of false positivity, I
was going to send my little blade directly into one of their
feet.

“Let’s go,” I said, my voice unwavering, my
tone uncommonly hard, even to my ears. “The sun will be setting
soon, and we’ll need light to kill those infected.”

“The barn?” Alex asked as he assessed me
curiously, and much to my amusement, cautiously.

I nodded firmly. “The barn.”

Evelyn

We marched along, one behind the other, each of us
keeping to our respective places since we couldn’t stand to be near
one another. The only good thing about being stuck in the middle of
nowhere was that we were in the middle of nowhere, and it was
unlikely that anything was going to sneak up on us. I couldn’t say
that I was completely at ease, but as I walked, or rather, stomped,
I found the tension in my shoulders beginning to fade.

The fresh air, the warm sun beating down on
me, it was all somewhat soothing after being stuck inside the
cramped and filthy truck, breathing in the sweaty foul air for long
hours at a time. The stench of the dead body and the infected that
had been trapped inside had yet to leave the truck, and despite the
open windows, the smell clung to our skin. To be outside in the
fresh air was invigorating, and I took breath after deep breath,
feeling calmer and better as the smell finally left my nose.

I watched Leisel’s confident steps as she
followed behind Alex, and found myself smiling slightly. He’d
silently refused to let her take the lead, walking purposely faster
every time she’d attempted to walk ahead, his stubbornness nearly
outweighing hers. Eventually she’d relented, but her scowl
remained.

I knew her well enough to know she was
reading too much into the situation, taking his behavior as a
personal insult against her, when in reality, he cared about her so
much more than she realized. To a man like Alex, protecting what he
cared about was how he expressed his feelings, but it made me
nervous as well. So I couldn’t blame her for wanting to stand
strong and fight her own battles.

Accepting that she didn’t need me as much as
she once had wasn’t an easy feat for me. Her budding relationship
with Alex and her own desire to finally exert some independence had
come as such a surprise, that at first I hadn’t known how to handle
the mixed emotions her new behavior had stirred within me. And I
was still struggling with where I fit in here, within our little
group as well as in this world. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d
ever figure it out, or if there was anything left to figure out
anymore.

Kicking a rock, I watched listlessly as it
bounced down the road, passing both Alex and Leisel, but neither
took any notice, too consumed with their frustrated stomping.
Rolling my eyes and wanting to throw rocks at both of their heads,
I let myself fall even farther behind them.

It was another hour or so before the barn
finally came back into view. Still surrounded by infected, too many
to count, there seemed to be even more than when we’d passed by
earlier. It reminded me of the cabin, and the infected that had
gathered there. There had to be some reason why they were crowding
this barn, desperate to get inside. Something had to have drawn
them here, the same reason that was keeping them here.

Coming to an abrupt stop about fifty yards
from the barn, Alex turned to look at Leisel and me, waiting until
we’d both caught up to him before speaking.

“Something is attracting them here,” he said,
giving voice to my thoughts. “But the sun will be setting soon, and
I don’t have a damn clue where we are. Either we clear it, or we
walk back and spend the night in the truck…again.” He grimaced.

The thought of spending another night in the
truck, with barely any room to move, with no choice but to have the
doors locked and the windows closed, trapping us inside with that
god-awful smell, made me cringe. Alex and Leisel both seemed to
share my sentiment, all of us looking positively nauseated at the
very idea of it.

“No truck,” Leisel snapped. “We need to clear
the barn.”

Alex’s narrowed gaze landed on her. “You
killed one infected, and now you’re ready to take on an entire
group of them?”

Leisel’s delicate nostrils flared in
response. “I’m so pissed off right now,” she shouted, “that I’m
ready to take you on!” She shoved him hard in the chest, but he
barely flinched at the contact.

With his arms folded across his chest, Alex
didn’t respond, only glowered down at her. Gritting her teeth,
Leisel gave him the same hard stare, neither of them willing to
back down. I glanced back and forth between them, realizing that
neither of them were going to willingly give up their ridiculous
battle of wills, then I stomped forward, stepped directly into
their line of sight, and threw my hands up in the air.

“Can we save your lover’s quarrel for after
we’ve cleared the barn?” I said witheringly. “As in, after it’s
safe here and I can be as far away from you both as possible?”

Leisel lifted her lip in an ugly snarl that
looked so out of place on her innocent-looking features that I
nearly laughed out loud.

Alex, unlike Leisel, seemed grateful for my
distraction. Sighing, he glanced toward the barn. “I’m not sure we
should risk it.”

I realized then that he was anxious, if not
downright nervous at the idea of us taking on so many infected. I’d
become accustomed to his gruff and usually no-nonsense demeanor,
that hearing him sound so apprehensive made me suddenly feel unsure
about attempting to clear this place.

“Maybe we could draw them away somehow?”
Leisel suggested with a sigh, though she still looked annoyed and
more than a little put out.

“There’s too many now,” Alex said, shaking
his head. “Way more than there were earlier.”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t voice my
annoyance. After all, I had suggested we stop earlier when we’d
first passed by. “They aren’t fresh,” I offered instead. “They
won’t be quick. I think we can clear them.”

Dragging a hand through his short beard, Alex
pressed his lips into a thin line. His eyes were darker than
normal, his uncertainty spilling over into his features.

“Anything goes wrong, you run,” he said, his
gaze landing on Leisel. “Got it? You goddamn run.” He looked at me
than, and I found myself grateful that I hadn’t been overlooked,
that he’d wanted me safe as well, even if it was merely because he
knew Leisel wouldn’t survive on her own. It gave me back some sense
of purpose.

Leisel’s eyes narrowed in response, but
instead of coming back at him with another smartass remark, she
simply nodded her head in acceptance. Glancing at me, she gave a
slight shake of her head, and I knew there was no chance in hell
she’d run, not without me, at least. I was her best friend, her
only family left, and she’d never leave me anywhere, just as I
wouldn’t leave her.

Alex had somehow gotten absorbed into our
family as well, though his place in it was still somewhat uncertain
to me. I trusted him, I respected him even, as well as Leisel’s
feelings toward him, but if it came down to it, I would choose
Leisel over him. And I hoped she would do the same for me.