Trepidation (11 page)

“Let’s wake his lazy butt up,” I said, shaking Nick. “He’s had enough beauty sleep.”

She knocked a spider off my shoulder.

I shuddered. “Whoever Marvin is, he’s lucky I didn’t smash his creepy pets.”

Finally, our brother opened his eyes. 

“Get up,” Val demanded.

We helped him up, and he stared off into the distance.

Val opened the door and looked both ways. “All clear,” she whispered.

Nick was still out of it, but we were lucky that he was at least able to walk.

Val went down the stairs first, with the catlike precision of the average ninja, then waved us forward when she saw that the coast was clear.

I guided Nick down the stairs as carefully as I could, but his feet were still half-asleep, and he missed a step and tumbled all the way down, groaning all the way. 

At the bottom of the stairs, I tried to get him to open his eyes and get back on his feet, but he was out cold. “C’mon, Nick!” I said, patting his cheeks. “Wake up, man! We don’t have time for you to keep going narcoleptic on us.”

Val ran to the dining room, then rushed back in and glanced at me. “Kate and Lucas are out cold too,” she said.

“Where are Rita and her evil offspring?” I asked.

“Probably out back, chopping up that body they were talking about earlier. Poor guy, whoever he was.”

“Poor us if they realize we’re not in the barn. C’mon. We gotta get Nick and the others outta here fast.”

“I hope they don’t see us.”

“Rita parked her truck out front,” I reminded her.

“I know, but so are they.”

I opened the front door and peered out, then walked outside and did a quick sweep. I didn’t see anybody, much to my relief. First, we carried Nick outside. The cold air blew in my face as we hoisted our brother into the back and covered him with an itchy wool Army blanket Val found. 

“One down, two to go,” Val said.

I let out a long breath. I was exhausted, terrified, and dreaded going back in that house, but we couldn’t leave our friends behind. I bolted for the porch and took two steps at a time, with my sister keeping up an impressive pace right behind me. We hurried straight to the dining room, and worked to throw Lucas over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry, so his weight would be balanced. He was heavy, but I managed, and Val carried Kate the same way.

I’d never left a house so fast, but as soon as we were to the truck, I heaved Lucas in, then helped Val roll Kate into the truck bed. While Val covered them up and quietly closed the tailgate, I searched for the keys. When I realized Rita was too smart to leave them above the visor or in the glovebox or under the driver’s seat, we began looking for a screwdriver or a similar tool so we could hotwire the thing. We were about to commit grand theft auto again, but that was a lot less dangerous than going back into that nightmarish house where we’d almost become the main course for a bunch of cannibalistic lunatics.

Click
.

“Come out and put your hands up.”

“Please don’t shoot,” Val begged, huddling next to me and crying, playing her role well. She inched toward the man. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged.

“I’m not gonna shoot you, honey,” he said.

“I heard you upstairs,” she said. “You’re looking for a girlfriend, huh? Well, blondes don’t have all the fun. If you let me go, I’ll show you.”

He relaxed his shoulders for a split second.

That was all the window Val needed to give him one swift, crippling kick to the nuts that sent him crashing to the ground. She then grabbed his weapon and knocked him out with the butt of the gun.

I made quick work of taking the rifle off his shoulder, happy to be armed again.

Suddenly, his brothers and friends came out of nowhere, and a volley of gunfire ensued.

“Shoot to kill, Dean!” Val yelled, shooting me a stern look. “Take ‘em out!”  I knew it was a hard order to give, because she’d always been compassionate, but it was a live-or-die situation, and she didn’t want to mess around. When the first man charged, she aimed and fired.

For me, though, shooting at live targets was a lot harder for me than just shooting zombies, but they’d left us no other option; truly, it was self-defense. I took careful aim at everyone who came at us, trying to hit shoulders or legs, anything that would slow them down without killing them, and a bunch of them dropped like flies. 

“I said shoot to kill,” Val said, then finished off the ones I’d missed. The cold, empty look in her eyes reminded me of the expression Nick often wore. She was a merciful, compassionate person, but when it came to saving her loved ones, she was a force to be reckoned with.

The remaining cannibals begged us to stop our defensive assault. Two men and one woman dropped their guns.

I covered Val while she kicked away their weapons, then picked them up and threw them in the back of the truck. She hurriedly gathered up the rest of the guns from the fallen and threw them in the truck as well.

“We surrender,” Rita said, her voice shaky.

“We want the keys to the truck,” I said. “Now!”

Rita looked at me, and her scowl deepened. “I did save you from that zombie back in the west wing, young man. See, I drugged that man a little too much, and it killed him. Too bad, because he had meaty thighs, and I could have made good use of him. I couldn’t let him dig his teeth into you though, not after I worked so hard to lure you in.”

“You wicked old witch!” Val screamed. “You need help.”

“I’m not wicked.” Rita said. “I’m just...this godforsaken zombie apocalypse has made me this way!” she roared.

Her lousy excuses wouldn’t garner her any sympathy from me, so I just shouted at the monster, “Gimme the keys to this truck, or there’s gonna be another victim of the apocalypse lying on your lawn, lady!” 

“I have to go inside,” Rita said in a calm, reassuring voice.

I didn’t trust her for a minute, and neither did Val. I was sure if we let her go in there alone, she’d come out with a machinegun or an Uzi. For all I knew, the crazy old bat had a rocket launcher stashed in her quilt rack.

“Dean,” Val said, “go in with her and get the keys. Shoot her if she tries anything funny.”

“I don’t wanna leave you out here with these guys,” I said.

“Right,” she said, then quickly shot both of them in the chest. “There. Now you have nothing to worry about. Now go.”

Rita screamed and wept over one of the men. “How dare you? Have you no mercy?”

“Us? You’ve got dead people hanging in your barn, ready to be made into casserole! How’s that for mercy, lady?” Val asked sarcastically. “Now, if you don’t go get those keys for my brother, the zombies are gonna be feasting on your dead corpse when I make Swiss cheese of you right here!”

“We’re just trying to survive, like you,” she whined.

“And so are we,” I chimed in.

Val’s voice trembled. “Now you know the pain each and every family member felt when their loved one didn’t come back from your little bed-and-breakfast. I’m officially putting this cattle farm out of business.”

“We don’t eat for pleasure, just for survival,” she said.

“Maybe at first you did,” I said, “but you admitted yourself that you started to enjoy it. You’re twisted and sick. We’re all living in this world, dealing with all this, but we aren’t eating each other! You’re a freak, a monster, and there’s something wrong with you if you’d go to those lengths!”

“No! I’m a good person,” Rita argued. 

“Tell that to the families of your victims,” Val screamed, getting angrier by the second, her face redder than I’d ever seen it before.

“Where’s the key, Rita?” I asked, waving my gun at the old woman.

“In the kitchen.”

“I suggest you be a little more specific, hag,” Val spat.

“It’s hanging on the key rack, behind my raincoat.”

I turned to my sister. “Go get it. I’ll watch Rita.”

She nodded and stormed into the house.

“Well? Are you gonna lecture me now about what a sick operation I run here?” Rita asked.

“I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person,” I said. “I read that on a coffee cup once, but it seems to apply here. You’re a freaking psychopath,” I said. “Nothing I could say would make you change your mind or feel any remorse.”

“Do you feel remorse when you eat a burger?” she asked. “Cows are killed the same way.”

“Human beings are not cows.”

Before Rita could utter another ridiculous word, Val came out. “I got the key!”

“Great. Now we can—”

Bang
!

The second my attention was diverted, there was a gunshot, and Val collapsed to the grass next to one of the men she’d killed.

“Val!” I shouted.

M
y sister was writhing in pain, shivering, and clutching her chest.

Rita then pointed the gun straight at me.

Just as I was about to lunge at her, the gun clicked empty. I rushed over and picked up Val.

Rita tried to grab another gun from the back of the truck, but she was startled by a series of zombie moans echoing through the air and knew she had a bigger problem to contend with then us. Rita’s own relatives were rising from the dead, and they were hungry for more human flesh. On top of that, our little gun battle had invited more to the dinner party, so several were moving in from all sides.

Seeing no point in wasting ammo to rescue a woman who would murder countless more people, I left Rita to her cruel fate. I lay Val in the passenger seat and shut the door, then started the engine.

“Don’t leave me!” Rita yelled. “My sons aren’t here to defend me!”

I threw the car in reverse and backed down the driveway. In the rearview mirror, I saw Rita run toward the house and bang on the door, with a hungry group of zombies, some of her own sons, gnashing their teeth behind her. Then a thought occurred to me. “Val,” I said. “Did you lock her out?”

She refused to answer me and stared straight ahead, as if in shock.

Taking that as my answer, I pressed the gas pedal, and we sped off.

“On the way here,” I said, “I saw a doctor’s office. We can raid it for supplies.”

“No. We can’t risk stopping. Just get to the apartment. The doctor there can take care of me.”

I gripped the steering wheel tightly. “That’s a pretty serious wound. Are you sure you can make it that far?”

Up ahead, a group of people armed with rifles was walking along the edge of the road. When they saw us, they tried to flag us down.

I slowed down, but Val grabbed my arm.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she said. “You shoulda learned by now that we can’t trust strangers, Dean. It’s been nothing but a disaster for us. Just keep going. If they’re flagging us down, that means they have nothing, and they can’t help us. They might try to hijack the truck, and we’ve gotta get back to the complex.”

Reluctantly, I passed the group of survivors. If we hadn’t disbanded the cannibals back at Rita’s bed-and-breakfast, those poor people might have been Rita’s next meal. Ultimately, while I was leaving the travelers to fend for themselves, I felt good that we’d taken out dangerous predators that would have been their demise. In a way, we’d rescued them without them even knowing it, and I had to take some joy in that.

I sped as fast as the truck could go, hoping my brother and friends wouldn’t wake up in a daze, wondering why they were in the back of a speeding truck. I called Val’s name to check on her, but she didn’t respond. “Val?” I repeated.

No answer.

I had no idea what to do. I knew we needed to sanitize her wound and stop the bleeding, and she was probably in dire need of antibiotics, which I was sure the doctor at the complex was fresh out of, because he’d had to treat so many patients. In fact, antibiotics had been added to the list of supplies we’d been sent out to search for.

Ignoring Val’s advice to head all the way back to the complex, I pulled into the parking lot of the doctor’s office I’d seen. I looked around but didn’t see anything. I shut off the engine, debating about what I should do. I knew it was dangerous to go inside the building and very risky to leave Kate, Nick, and Lucas unconsciousness in the back of the cab, defenseless against any oncoming zombies. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Val was probably right and I should just head home.

Just as I was about to back up, a woman pointed a rifle at me.

I rolled down my window. “Look, I’m leaving. I only stopped to—”

“Get out!” she demanded.

I was sure she wanted my truck, and I didn’t want to shoot her, so I decided to floor it and try to speed away.

Just as I was about to pull out, she shot out my tire.

“Crap!” I yelled.

“Get out!” she repeated.

I now knew she meant business, and I feared Nick, Val, Lucas, or Kate could get caught in the crossfire so I had no choice but to cooperate. She didn’t look all that dangerous, and I was sure I could fight her if I had to to keep the truck. I slowly got out and held my hands high, only to notice that there were tears running down her face. 

“Are you here to r-rob me?” she stuttered.

“No. I was trying to leave,” I said. “I don’t wanna cause any trouble.”

She aimed at my forehead, but her hand was shaky. “Were you gonna try to break in?”

“I desperately need medical supplies,” I said. “My sister’s been shot, and my three friends were drugged.”

She lowered her gun, and more tears streamed down her face. “Well, in that case, maybe we can help each other out,” she frantically said.

“How?” I asked.

“I’m a doctor. I can help you. I just want...something in return.”

I cocked a brow. “What?”

“I was just informed that my seventeen-year-old niece was left behind in a supply run. It wasn’t on purpose, but they were overrun by zombies at the Walgreen’s a few miles from here. If you rescue my niece, I’ll do my best to save your sister and the people who were drugged.”

“How do I know you’re really a doctor?” I questioned, not so ready to trust any stranger after the Rita fiasco.

“I guess you’ve just gotta trust me,” she said.

“Trust doesn’t come easy these days. Maybe you want to steal my truck.”