Angered Seasons: The Worst Birthday Ever (Volume One) (5 page)

I glanced down and saw the scratches long my
forearm. “You know, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume
that if these guys are sick, it’s not contagious. I’ve been bit and
scratched and I’m still fine.” I winced as Lane brought a wet cloth
back from the kitchen and wipe down the scratches before applying
some Polysporin for good measure. I checked on Pete’s face while
Lane went to make coffee.

“What are you guys doing here?” I took the
wet rag and wiped down the cut under his left eye.

Pete swallowed hard. “We went out tonight. We
were a couple of blocks from home when the babysitter called
screaming that someone was breaking into the house.”

Marie started to sob softly, her pretty face
swollen and her blue eyes red from the tears she’d already shed. He
went to sit by her and hugged her close, brushing her shoulder
length blond hair behind her ear.

“We got there and I grabbed the first thing
within reach from in my tool box.” He gestured to the sledgehammer
leaning against the couch. “I didn’t get there fast enough.” His
whisper was hard to hear under Marie’s crying. “By the time I got
them off of her, she was dead. I ran to Ashley’s room and grabbed
her. I…” He blushed but met my eyes, his dark brown ones filled
with tears he was refusing to let fall. “I didn’t know where else
to go.”

My heart tightened and I smiled. “You know
we’re always here for you.”

Lane confirmed my statement by putting a hand
on his shoulder and squeezing it. I had a brief flash back to the
day we’d met him; young, cocky. Both of our crews were made up of
kids that had been assigned to us as part of a community service
project. Pete had been a gangly fifteen year old that had been
arrested for breaking and entering. Max was a recovered drug addict
with a violent disposition; Jason had been involved in numerous
fights; the twins, a couple of honor roll students, had a bad habit
of stealing cars and leading the police on wild chases just for the
fun of it. The list went on and not all of them stayed on with us
after their sentence had been carried out, but a few did. We knew
life was tough. Lane’s mom had been a single working mom after
she’d left his dad for beating her and I’d bounced around from
foster home to foster home until I was old enough to get my own
place.

I took a deep breath. “Alright, so, I think
we need some sort of a plan. We don’t have infinite ammo and we’ll
definitely need food. We know they’re breaking into houses. We need
to make this place as secure as possible.”

Lane was shaking his head. “We have to leave.
There are too many windows and any wood we have is at the shop. We
can’t board them properly.”

I frowned. “So what do you want to do?”

“I think we need to get to the shop. The
windows there can be boarded, there’s the fridges, the little deep
freeze. We pack up all the food we have here, bring it there. I
don’t know how bad this is going to get, but if we lose power, we
have the generators there. They won’t last forever, but they’re
better than nothing. We’ll pack clothes and blankets…”

I raised an eyebrow at him and he stopped
short.

“Now, who looks like they think they’re in a
zombie movie.” I smiled despite the horrifying situation we were
in. I was glad to see his jaw relax and his eyes soften.

Little Ashley made one of those adorable baby
sounds and I found myself wondering if I was going to live long
enough to have one of my own. Lane broke eye contact with me and
headed back to the kitchen only to return with four cups of coffee
and a Boston cream donut with a candle in it.

He flashed me a lopsided grin and shrugged.
“I might not get the chance to give it to you later. I’d hate to
miss one year just because we’re stuck in a zombie apocalypse.” He
placed the donut in my hand and pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Happy birthday, Freckles.”

I blew out the candle and cut the donut into
four. “Do you remember when I turned sixteen and my foster mom beat
me with a chair leg because she said she knew what sixteen year old
girls did and I should be punished ahead of time so I’d think twice
about sleeping around?”

He nodded, his jaw clenched at the memory. “I
climbed up to your room right after it happened.”

“And you helped me run away.” I took a deep
breath. “That’s always been my number one worst birthday. Until
today. I think that today officially takes the award for the worst
birthday ever.”

“I got a hold of Max and Lizzy. They’ll meet
us at the shop. Jason, John, Brent and Grant are all MIA. No one’s
answering their phones.” Pete looked like he was going to be sick.
We were more than a company; we were a family.

“What about the four community service kids?
Did you try them?” Lane stuffed our last blanket into a bag.

Pete nodded. “Nothing.”

“We’ll try again when we’re at the shop.” I
slung a backpack stuffed with canned goods over my shoulder and
opened the door so we could pack out last load into the trucks.
When we were done, I did a once over of the house and met Lane at
the door as he came to see what was taking me so long.

“Wait!”

Lane bumped into me as I turned back toward
him.

“What about Iggy?” We both looked at our
iguana.

“I gave him lots of food and water. We can
come check on him in a couple of days.” Lane gripped my shoulder.
“We can’t bring him, Gabs.”

I took a deep breath and swallowed the lump
in my throat. “I know. I just…”

Lane waited until I looked up at him. “He’ll
be fine.”

I gave a small nod and gave the massive
terrarium one last look before running to the truck and smiling
reassuringly at the questioning look Pete was giving me from his
half ton. Lane climbed into the one ton. My heart sank as we left
our driveway. I glanced at Lane who looked exactly how I felt.
Bewildered, terrified, yet determined. He caught my look and gave
my hand a squeeze.

We drove ten minutes through the city and
another ten out of town without any more sightings of the Yellow
Eyes. We kept the radio on the local station for the first part of
the drive, though they weren’t reporting anything new. Everyone was
advised to stay indoors and to lock their doors. I reached over and
changed the station so that the satellite radio would come through.
Every station had stopped playing their usual programming and was
giving the same warnings as the local stations.

“This is unreal.”

Lane nodded his agreement, but stayed quiet
as he focused on the wet highway. He pulled onto the gravel drive
that led to the yard. He drove up to the shop and shut the truck
off as Pete pulled up beside us and did the same. We all gazed
around, looking for anything that seemed out of the usual.

Everyone piled out of the trucks and I ran to
the shop door to unlock it. I was pushed back as the door opened on
its own. My heart jumped into my throat and my adrenaline pumped.
My fists flew without my thinking about it, self-preservation
kicking in of its own accord. Whoever was standing there grunted
with the impact, but quickly managed grab my arms and hold me
still. I struggled until I realized Lane had taken a hold of me and
was holding me to his chest.

“Shush, Gabby. Take a deep breath.”

I did as I was told and tried to relax
against him.

“Christ, Gabs, what the fuck?”

I looked up to see all six and a half feet of
Jason filling the doorway, rubbing his chest where I’d pummeled
him. His face was pale in contrast to his black hair and made his
dark brown eyes stand out of his face like saucers. I left the
safety of Lane’s arms and launched myself at Jason who staggered
back to catch me. Tears welled in my eyes and I was powerless to
keep them in.

“Oh, my god, thank god! We thought something
had happened to you. We tried phoning.” I pulled back and wiped my
arm across my face. I felt like a tool for losing control when I
was sure these kids needed someone to be strong right now. Not that
they were kids by any means. They’d come to us as troubled
teenagers, but were developing into adults any parent would be
proud of. Jason had been with us the longest. He’d been one of the
first of our community service kids when we’d volunteered for the
program. He’d graduated to having his own crew a year ago and was
stepping up to the challenge fantastically. At twenty four, he was
also the oldest of our ‘kids’.

Lane handed me a bag and we started to unload
the trucks.

“I was out with friends,” explained Jason
while we moved from the truck to the shop. “The bartender announced
they were shutting down do to what was happening so we jumped back
into Rick’s car. They decided they were going to drive around and
see if they could find any of those mob kids; they were going to
teach them a lesson, Rick said. I told them to drop me off here. I
think my cell phone is in his car, still.”

We were rushing from the trucks to the shop,
trying to get everything in as quickly as possible.

“Why here?” Marie asked from the corner of
the room where she’d settled down to breastfeed little Ashley.

Jason shrugged and turned a red. “I didn’t
want to go to my apartment by myself. I knew Lane and Gabby were
out for her birthday. I figured, if anything, I had less of a
chance that any of those freaks would find me out of town.”

We hauled the last of our provisions into the
shop and I locked the door behind us. Everyone let out a sigh of
relief though we didn’t have any time to relax.

“Let’s board the windows.” Lane went to get
some two by fours.

“What are you doing?” Jason grabbed a couple
more and followed him.

“We’re going to build frames three quarter of
the height of the windows. I don’t want to board them completely.
That way, we can still see out.” He pulled a tape measurer out of
his tool belt that hung on a hook with all the others before
heading to the windows and called out the measurements for the
frames. Jason measured out the cuts on the two by fours and handed
them to Lane.

I pulled the air nailer out of its case and
hooked it to the compressor. Pete plugged the table saw in before
dragging a sheet of plywood over to it. He paused before turning on
the saw.

“Um, Lane?”

Lane looked up from where he’d been about to
cut through a two by four with the skill saw.

“Does this have to look good?”

Lane smiled and shook his head. “It just has
to be solid.”

Pete nodded and was about to cut the sheet in
half when he stopped, walked to his apron, grabbed his tape
measurer and chalk line, and marked out his cuts. He caught me
looking at him and he shrugged.

“It feels wrong not doing it right.”

I grinned and started to nail the frames
together as Lane handed me the cut two by fours. I put the two
extra pieces into the middle so that it looked like I was building
a miniature wall. No one was going to punch through this baby if I
could help it. Pete screwed the doubled up plywood to my frame and
handed it to Jason who took it and headed to the window, impact
driver in hand.

“What do you think?” Pete stood, broom in
hand, looking at the windows.

Lane took a deep breath and slowly blew it
out of his nose. “I think that if they try to get in here, they
might think twice about it once they start.”

“What about the door?” Marie was eyeing the
object in question, fear clear on her face. She set Ashley into her
car seat and covered her with a baby blanket.

“Don’t worry, Marie.” Jason opened it and
took a quick look around before popping the casing off. Pete was
there in a flash, drill in hand. It didn’t take long for them to
flip the frame around so that the door swung in instead of out.

I glanced at Lane as he replaced the rest of
the screws on the hinges of the back door then screwed three two by
fours across it so it couldn’t be pushed open. He blew the dark
bangs out of his eyes. Dark blue eyes met mine.

He frowned. “What?”

I shrugged. I had so many thoughts racing
through my head, I couldn’t settle on just one. Was Iggy going to
be alright? Were the others going to make it here on time? Was this
all for nothing; were we all about to die? My heart dropped. Had I
been wrong about not telling Lane how I felt?

“Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you just
lost your best friend.” Lane grinned.

“You’re not funny.” I tried not to smile
back.

“Yes, I am. It’s one of the things you love
about me.”

“You’re a nerd.”

His grin widened. “Another thing you love
about me.”

I started to laugh. “Stop it. We shouldn’t be
laughing. This whole situation is horrible.”

His smile softened. “That’s why it’s the
perfect time to be laughing.”

I inhaled deeply. “How are you so calm?”

He grunted. “I’m not. I am freaking out.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah,
right.”

“No, really.” He took my hand and put it over
his heart. I could feel it pounding in his chest.

“Wow.” I looked up at him and smiled. “You’re
not kidding.”

His grin returned. “I told you.”

“I’m scared, Lane.” I let him pull me to his
chest and closed my eyes as his arms wrapped around me.

“We’ll be ok.”

“This isn’t one of those Zombie movies. We’re
not going to find some weird person with a key to the end of this
epidemic. If anything, we’re probably bunched in with those that
are the first to die.”

“No way.” He pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Look. We have the guy who has a girlfriend and a kid, the single
handsome guy, when the others get here we’ll have the jokers, the
one that panics, and the girl who goes off and get herself killed.”
He frowned. “Only we’ll make sure Lizzy doesn’t go off on her own.”
He nodded, satisfied with his analogy. “We have all the key
elements of the main cast of characters.”