Thicker than Blood (7 page)

The soft fall of Alex’s body thumping against
the ground signaled to us that he was on the other side. We waited,
the three of us, with bated breath, for what would come next.
“Clear,” he finally called out softly.

Jami gestured for me to go next. Shaking my
head, I pulled Leisel forward. “I’ll go once she’s over.”

Glancing up at the fence, her eyes as big and
wide as a doe’s, she swallowed hard and looked back at me. “I
can’t,” she whispered, and shook her head.

“You can do this, Lei,” I said to reassure
her. “This is our chance, and you can do this, you have to.”
Gently, I pushed her toward the fence.

Nodding halfheartedly, she reluctantly
climbed onto Jami’s back. Immediately he lifted her, allowing her
to reach higher so she could pull herself the rest of the way up.
She fumbled clumsily for her footing, finally finding it, then
heaved herself to the top. She soon straddled the wall and
scrambled awkwardly over the top, and just before she was about to
drop to the other side, she glanced down to give me a small,
nervous smile, and then she was gone.

“Eve, you’re next,” Jami whispered.

The alleyway was darker now, more oppressive,
the moon having hidden behind the clouds.

“Jami?”

“Yeah?” he asked, glancing back to the other
end of the alley.

“Thank you for this. Words don’t seem enough.
I—”

Jami looked at me, his cocky smile back in
place. “You can show me how grateful you are later, but for now, I
need you to get your ass over there.” Slapping my ass, he winked at
me.

Suppressing a laugh, I grinned at him and
shook my head.

After I climbed on top of Jami’s shoulders,
he lifted me with a grunt, and I found myself flailing for a moment
before finally managing to grip the fence. As I pulled myself up
and over, Jami’s hands gave me the final push I needed to scale the
remaining height. Just as I prepared to drop to the other side, I
glanced down at Jami, finding him smiling up at me.

Freedom was so close, I could almost taste
it, palpable on my tongue. Suddenly I found myself smiling back at
Jami, grinning actually, my worry muted by the excitement I had for
the future. Freedom and Jami had come at a price, but it was a
price I was willing to pay, for both Leisel and myself.

“You can do it, Eve,” he whispered, his eyes
shining brightly, reflecting his own excitement. He kissed his
palm, and then lifted it up to me.

It was the first time Jami had ever shown
me that he cared, and it took me by surprise. He’d never kissed me
good-bye, never before shown me that I was worth something to him.
Fluttering in my chest, my heartbeat was erratic at this newfound
knowledge. My charming, cocky Jami had just shown me that he gave a
damn about me, something he’d sworn to never do again, not after
he’d lost everything. But he’d finally let someone in—me—and I felt
privileged and happy, trapped in a blissful bubble of hope for our
future.

I was still smiling at him when my gaze
caught on something moving behind him, and then my world slammed to
a halt, everything suddenly moving in slow motion. The guards were
nearly upon us, their lanterns lighting the area all around Jami.
Men were yelling, running toward us with their guns drawn, shouting
for us to drop our weapons and stay where we were.

And Jami, oh my God, my brave and cocky Jami,
he turned and raised his gun.

“No!” I screamed. “Jami, no!”

“Go!” he shouted back. “Go, Eve!”

Jami didn’t look back at me as he let loose
the first bullet, and while I should have been dropping down to the
other side and scrambling for my own safety, I couldn’t move. I was
frozen, caught in this horrifying, devastating moment.

Gunfire lit up the small space, small orange
explosions of bullets being expelled at inhuman speed, and then
suddenly, as if the wind had been knocked out of him, Jami dropped
to his knees. My following cry was lost to the sound of gunshots
and shouts, and still I could do little more than stare in horror
as Jami continued to fire his gun, even as they fired back,
riddling his body with bullets. He fired until his gun was empty,
though his finger continued to click the trigger in hopes of more
until his hand fell limply to his side, the gun falling from his
fingers. The gunfire stopped then, the small space seeming smaller
and darker than before.

I didn’t even realize that I was still crying
out until my throat began to burn. Just as Jami slumped forward,
falling silent and still, something grabbed at my leg, promptly
yanking me over the fence and into the darkness.

My fall was soft, Alex’s arms catching me
just before I crashed to the ground. As soon as I was standing,
Leisel’s hand found mine and squeezed it before pulling me from the
wall, away from the shouting and yelling, away from Jami and into
the forest.

We stumbled through the blackness,
occasionally catching what sounded like the low moan of an
infected. Keeping my grip firm on Leisel’s hand, I refused to let
her go, even for a second. When she stumbled, I stumbled; when she
fell, I fell. We were in this together; she was all I had left.

It seemed as if hours had passed before the
forest thinned and we reached a small clearing. In the moonlight, I
could make out the outline of a truck, and as we grew closer, I
noticed that it was old and rusted. What was once probably a
beautiful blue now looked like a washed-out gray with patches of
brown. Worse, it didn’t appear as if it had been started in years,
and I found myself holding out little hope of it being a worthy
escape vehicle.

Regardless of its appearance, we piled
inside. What choice did we have? The key was already in the
ignition, and as Alex turned it, the truck sputtered several times
before the engine finally turned over noisily.

As we drove away, leaving the forest
behind us, Leisel’s head came to rest on my shoulder. I could feel
her body quaking, hear her soft sniffles as she cried silent tears
while I stared blankly out of the window.

Maybe tomorrow I’d cry. But not tonight.

“He kissed me good-bye,” I mumbled, still
staring into the darkness surrounding us. Taking a deep breath, I
slowly released it, refusing to be anything but grateful. Grateful
because my friend, my very best friend, had evaded execution,
grateful that both she and I were now free of Fredericksville and
all its hidden horrors.

And that was all that really mattered.

Leisel

I awoke to the faint chirping of birds off in the
distance, and the sound of trickling water. For just a moment I was
at peace, happy in that gentle place between waking and sleep,
ignorant of the crick in my neck from sleeping sitting up, and
blissfully unaware of all that had transpired over the past two
days.

And then it came back to me. Slowly at
first—the pain, the violence, the crime—and I squeezed my eyes
tightly shut, trying to block it out and enjoy the peace for just a
moment longer.

But it wouldn’t relent; all at once the rest
of it poured in. My fear, my bloodstained hands, the bodies in the
alleyway. And then later, while tucked neatly between Alex and
Evelyn, when I’d cried and cried until the movement of the truck
rocked me slowly into a blissful unconsciousness, all while Evelyn
had run her fingers through my hair, pressed soft kisses on the top
of my head, whispered soothing, calming words in my ear.

But it should have been the other way around.
It should have been me comforting her. After all, it had been her
who’d lost someone she’d cared for. Not me.

Weak.

The word pounded through my thoughts like a
wayward drumbeat until I could no longer stomach another second of
being alone with my thoughts, and my eyes flew open. I blinked
through tear-encrusted eyes, trying to see past the sudden blinding
sunlight streaming in through the truck’s dirty windows.

“Morning.” The sound of Alex’s deep, booming
voice startled me. Twisting in my seat, I found him standing just
outside the driver’s side door with his back to me. I blinked
again, realizing that the sound I’d initially thought was trickling
water was actually the sound of him urinating.

As my face heated with embarrassment, I
quickly turned away and caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview
mirror. The truck was an older model, the windshield short and
squat, and the turned-down mirror gave me an up close and personal
view of my face that I didn’t much care to see. Dried smears of
blood ran up and down both my cheeks, dark bruises ringed my eyes,
my nose had a thin cut running across the bridge of it. My bottom
lip was swollen, split in two places, and my neck…

I swallowed hard, glancing away from the
mirror, vividly recalling what Lawrence’s hand had felt like
wrapped around my throat, his fingertips biting into my skin while
I fought for my breath, while he took what he hadn’t been
given.

And then the blood. The memory of the blood
covering me, covering the entire room, washed over me in one
suffocating wave, so very real that I could taste the sharp
metallic flavor all over again.

“Evelyn,” I managed to croak out. Alex bent
down, resting his forearms on top of the open window.

“You okay?” he asked.

Not trusting my voice, I simply nodded. He
watched me for one long uncomfortable moment before pointing.
Following his finger, I turned in my seat and took in our
surroundings.

We appeared to be parked on the side of a
deserted two-lane road, surrounded by mostly open land. I quickly
spotted Evelyn, some several dozen yards away, as she emerged from
behind a large oak tree. She was moving slowly, much slower than
usual, looking disheveled and a bit dazed. I stared at her,
squinting to see her better as she continued down the small incline
of pasture. Her body language, her movements, her facial
expression, it was all wrong and I hardly recognized her. This
appeared to be Evelyn at her lowest, internalizing her pain,
letting it press her down until something as simple as walking
became strenuous.

I’d only ever seen this Evelyn once before.
The day she’d lost Shawn.

“Eve!” Alex shouted, bellowing from behind
me, causing my entire body to flinch. “Three o’clock!”

My eyes darted right and found nothing,
then left,
Evelyn’s three o’clock
, and my breath caught in my throat. I’d seen the infected
before, God knows I had, too many to count. But even so, they
struck the sort of fear inside of me that no fist, no weapon, no
living person ever could.

In the beginning, when Thomas and I were
holed up in Evelyn and Shawn’s home, the four of us had waited for
weeks for someone to come and save us—the army, the national guard,
the Red Cross, anyone to take us somewhere safe. During that time,
the infected had been everywhere. Milling down the streets, in
every nook and cranny, pounding on the house, trying to beat their
way inside. Those who had once been our neighbors, friends, and
family had all succumbed to the infection and become monsters.

I’d even had to endure the horror of watching
my own husband turn, watch as the fever overtook him, as the bloody
pustules formed all over his skin. I watched him cry tears mixed
with blood, and gasp my name with his last few breaths. Then I’d
watched as he awoke, his eyes clouded over, as a garbled cacophony
of hoarse groans and animalistic gurgles erupted from his throat.
And just as he’d lunged for me, his jaw snapping, his teeth bared,
I’d watched as Shawn had speared my beloved husband through the
skull with a butcher knife. The very same butcher knife he’d used
to carve the turkey every Thanksgiving.

I’d seen the infected in Fredericksville too,
the stragglers who had somehow managed to find themselves at our
walls. But it was always from afar. Even during the one and only
wall breach during the first year, the invasion had been short
lived, resulting in very few fatalities.

But now here we were, in the great wide
open, just the three of us, the birds, and the three infected
shambling their way toward Evelyn. My only source of relief to draw
from stemmed from the noticeable difference between these infected
and the ones from the beginning. These were slower than I’d
remembered them to be, less steady on their feet, and unable to
move quickly.

Alex was already jogging around to the
front of the truck, a rifle in his hands. He paused in front of the
hood, drawing himself to his full height. Lifting the weapon to eye
level, he squinted, peering through the scope. His index finger
twitched on the trigger, and a bullet cracked in the air, the small
explosion echoing around us.

I watched, clasping my hand over my mouth, as
one of the infected fell. Its two companions paid it little mind as
its body crumpled to the ground, their focus only on Evelyn. Who,
to my complete and utter horror, wasn’t running away from them, but
toward them.

Something like a war cry flew from her lips
as she rushed them head-on, her gun in her hand. My head buzzed
with a pounding chorus of fear and anxiety as she flew across the
lush grass, her arms and legs deftly pumping as she headed straight
toward death itself.

What was she doing? Why would she be so
reckless when here was Alex, complete with a rifle and an excellent
shot, to boot?

“Help her!” I screamed, throwing myself at
the windshield, pounding on the glass with clenched fists. “Alex!
Do something!”

His rifle still raised, his body poised and
ready to fire, Alex shook his head. “Can’t!” he shouted. “She’s
blocking me! I might hit her!”

A full-body shudder racked through me,
leaving my lips quivering and my hands trembling. I found myself
frantically fumbling beside me, searching for the gun Alex had
given me the night before. For what reason, I didn’t know. I’d
never fired one, had never even held one; Lawrence hadn’t allowed
me the liberty.