This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) (18 page)

A shadow moved across the inside of my eyelids. Something was blocking the morning light, and I was a little too hungover to deal with that. I stiffened and cracked an eye open, readying to attack. The smirking face of Zoe peered down at me. She uncrossed her arms and produced the now empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

“You couldn’t have saved even a little bit for me?”

I had to swallow a few times before I was able to reply. It felt like I had just been standing in front of an air-conditioning unit with my mouth open for hours. “Kill me.” My head was pounding, and I felt like death warmed over.

Zoe laughed, “Come on, we’ll get you some Tylenol and water.”

I started to sit up; trying not to jostle the hammock too much, but with it being a hammock and all, that attempt was futile.

Ethan’s eyes flew open as he was rocked back and forth. “What the?”

I chuckled at his complete disorientation, “I think we’re being told we have to get up.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face and hauled himself to his feet.

“You need some Tylenol, too?” Zoe grinned.

“Well, I ain’t gonna say no.”

We walked back to the cabin, probably looking as bad as we felt. Zoe was grinning the whole time and I could tell she was waiting for us to be alone before she tried to drag all the details out of me.

Inside, Darren and Chloe were making breakfast with the powdered eggs we had found, but John was nowhere to be seen.

“Where you been?” Chloe narrowed her eyes at Ethan then at me.

Ethan shot me a panicked glance, and I just grinned, “I dibs the shower first.” I ran off, leaving him to explain.

The shower was lukewarm and had almost zero water pressure, but it beat bathing in a pond out back. The water also had a slight metallic smell to it, which usually meant the well needed more water softening salts.
At least we were getting our iron. 

I took two pills from the bottle Zoe propped on the kitchen counter and downed them with some instant coffee. I tried to eat some of the scrambled eggs, but my stomach could only handle so much.

“Ethan said ya’ll had a bonfire without me,” Chloe pouted.

I scratched the back of my head, not sure of what else Ethan had told her, “It was past your bedtime.”

Judging from the scrunched-up look on her face, Chloe didn’t like my answer.

“I’ll tell you what, next time we’ll all have a bonfire. We even grabbed some marshmallows on our run.”

Chloe beamed at that, “What else did you bring back?”

I was amazed at how well kids recovered. She seemed to be back to normal despite the scene we had witnessed yesterday. I wish I could bounce back like that. Realization hit me that the bookmark making set I had brought back for Chloe was stored in my backpack, which was currently located at the police station.

“Bailey and I brought you back this.”

Ethan appeared from his shower holding the My Little Pony choose your own adventure series I had helped him pick out.

Chloe squealed and jumped off of her stool excitedly. “Thank you!” She grabbed the books from Ethan and gave him a huge hug. Then came back over to me and gave me a hug as well. “I know you picked this out, so thank you,” she whispered to me.

I grinned at little miss smart-ass. She opened the first book on the counter and got right into it. Ethan grinned at me, his hand resting on his right shoulder. I forgot he still had that bullet wound.

“Where did John go?”

“Don’t know, he was gone before I got up,” Darren answered.

Shit.
That couldn’t be good. We still needed him to sew up Ethan.

“Do you want me to help you patch up your arm?” I asked.

“If you could, that would be great.”

We had unloaded some of the supplies yesterday, and it looked like they had been back at it this morning. There was a massive pile of stuff in the corner and pretty much on every surface. I grabbed the first aid supplies and began rewrapping Ethan’s arm. The wound looked sore and wasn’t starting the healing process.

“Still think I need stitches?” he said.

“I’d say so.”

“Think you can do it?” Ethan looked me in the eye

“I’ve only ever sewn my clothes and not very well either. I’d probably make it worse.”

Darren put down his coffee mug. “I can do it.”

“You’ve stitched a wound before?” I asked skeptically.

“No, but I’ve taken advanced first aid training and we had to learn about giving stitches.”

Judging from the look on Ethan’s face, I don’t think he trusted Darren to do it.

“Why did you take advanced first aid?” I probed.

“I was going to enlist in the army.”

“So that’s why you can shoot so well,” Zoe added.

I wasn’t sure if shooting an infected friend in the head amounted to being able to shoot well, but I suppose I should stop resenting Darren for that. Someone had to do it.

“Since John’s not here, I guess I don’t have a choice.”

Ethan sat down on the stool and Darren started to rummage through the supplies. He set out the fish hook looking needle and sterile black thread.

“Come on Chloe, let’s go read those outside.” Zoe ushered Chloe out the door with her books in hand.

Ethan glanced at me, “You gonna watch?”

“Well I should probably learn, although Darren hasn’t done this before so I’m not sure if I’ll learn wrong or not.”

“I’ll have you know I aced that class.”

Darren had the white rubber gloves on and dipped the hook into the peroxide. The wound bubbled as he poured the disinfectant on the opening before he started in. Ethan hissed through his teeth as the needle pierced the angry wound. His knuckles went white as he gripped the counter. It only took four stitches before Darren tied the end off and cut the extra thread off.

He added more disinfectant to the now even redder lesion, before wrapping it in gauze.

“Not too bad,” I said, although I had nothing to base that comment on.

“Speak for yourself,” Ethan grunted from the pain.

I slid the Tylenol bottle to him, and he swallowed two pills dry. At this rate, we would need another bottle soon.

Darren rounded up and tossed out the used supplies. “See, it’s literally like sewing a seam, except you use a different shaped needle and generally the pants you’re sewing don’t jerk away.”

Ethan glared at Darren’s attempt at humor. I tried to hide my grin by sipping my coffee.

“Hey, I could have used super glue on it,’ Darren said. “Would you rather that?”

“I thought that was just a myth?” I asked.

“If you clean out the wound beforehand, there shouldn’t be an issue. It’s when there are still lots of germs in the open cut that you get the infection setting in.”

“Good to know.”

“So are you guys going to tell us exactly what happened?” Darren asked, clearly he had been waiting to do so.

Ethan and I shared a look, neither one of us wanting to have to relive the nightmare of the last two days. But Ethan always the gentleman, decided to recount everything to Darren before I had a chance to.

Darren took a minute to let it all sink in. “You think those paramilitary guys are going to come looking for you?”

“I don’t see how,” I said. “They didn’t follow us, and we are a good distance away from Duson.”

There was no way to be sure, but I had this sinking feeling that Riley wasn’t the type to let things go. I didn’t have a chance to even think about that until now. Fear ran down my spine, its icy grip making me panic inside.
Would he want revenge?
The whole situation was their fault anyways, forcing us to become prisoners, but I doubt he saw it that way. Psychos never did.

“We should make a run back to John’s gun shop to grab more ammo and to replace your weapons in case they do show up. Maybe get some sort of perimeter warning system going,” Darren suggested.

“We just got back, Darren and just lost a person yesterday. Ethan is shot and John is MIA, I really don’t think right now is the best time,” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Plus I have no idea where we would get a perimeter system.”

“I didn’t mean right now. And if we’re lucky John’s store will have something, if not, we look for a hunting or outdoors type store.”

“I agree that we need more ammo and weapons to replace the ones we lost, but after what happened to us, we should not be goin’ out in groups less than three,” Ethan said as he tested his injured arm.

“So we have to wait until your arm is better then?” Darren didn’t seem happy with this revelation.

He was obviously pissed about having to stay behind.

“In case you’ve forgotten in the last few seconds, we’re down a person and one is no mental state to go out,” I added.

Darren’s jaw clench at that. “Well we should make it soon. Who knows, that group could have someone skilled in tracking.” He roughly pushed himself away from the counter and walked outside.

I let out a deep sigh. I was at a loss as to what we should do. Normally John was here to tell us what the best course of action was.

“Fuck him,” Ethan said angrily.

I laughed. From the shocked look Ethan shot me, I’m guessing that wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

“I said the same thing yesterday.”

Ethan grinned at my explanation, “What do you think we should do?”

“I know you’re probably tired of hearing this, but I have no clue.”

“I don’t know either.”

We decided to head outside. Chloe was at the picnic table reading furiously. Zoe and Darren were talking quietly off to the side, and I didn’t like the looks of that. Zoe had the worst taste in guys and there was something about Darren that still irked me, although he hadn’t really done anything too bad in the grand scheme of things. After all, I had just stabbed someone a day ago. So maybe I was the dangerous one.
I guess I should have gone into psychology instead.

“Ethan!” Chloe yelled. “Come look!”

She excitedly showed Ethan the story, and he pretended to be impressed by it. Zoe broke off from Darren and swarmed over to me. I knew where this was going, and I really hated girl talk.

“I just had to hear the whole story from Darren!” She was pissed that he was filled in first. I was slightly relieved that it was about our trip, not Ethan.

“We literally just told him, the gossip queen.” I sent a glare in his direction.

“Jesus.”

“That about sums it up.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“So you and Ethan huh?”

I knew it was a trap!

“Not that I didn’t see that coming a mile away,” Zoe grinned knowingly at me.

“Actually, I didn’t take a page from your book last night. We kissed and then fell asleep in the hammock.”

Instead of being angry at my insult, Zoe just laughed. “You are wise, young Skywalker.”

See, true friends can insult each other and not give each other the silent treatment for a week afterwards.

“I don’t think that’s an actual quote from the movie.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever, I prefer
Star Trek
anyways.”

“Blasphemy!”

Zoe’s eye darted to something behind me and I whipped around in time to see a figure emerge from the treeline. My hand instinctively went for the gun on my belt, which of course wasn’t there.

“It’s John,” Darren announced.

We watched the figure grow larger; the outline of his cowboy hat came into view first. As he got closer, I noticed he had a gun with a silencer attached in his hand. This got Ethan’s attention.

“Chloe go back inside,” he commanded.

“But Ethan–”

“Now!”

She grabbed her books and grumbled until she was safely inside. I had no idea what was going to happen; John didn’t look like John. He had the look of a man possessed. I glanced back at Darren who must have had the same thing going through his mind that I did. Retribution. His hand rested on his gun holster, just in case.

I spotted the russet-colored stains that were smeared on John’s clothing as he approached us.
What the hell?
Grief made people do all kinds of things; made good people do bad things. Darren moved to pull the gun from his belt.

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed at him.

Darren regarded me with cold eyes. The stains on John’s clothes resembled the one’s I got from the infected’s blood. It was not human blood, much to my relief.

“John?” I asked hesitantly.

John stopped and looked down at the gun in his hand, and then wiped his other hand on his shirt. Looking anywhere but at us, it seemed like John wanted to say something. I had a hard time swallowing past the lump in my throat.

His sudden movement caught me off guard, and I flinched. John had sheathed his gun back into its holster, and then took a deep breath. “I ran into a couple of infected out there. They were pretty close to the property line.”