Determined To Live (11 page)

The second one is
his mother. Her face is also bruised and bleeding - and she has the
same desperate, fearful, and tormented expression on her own face as
his dad has. But his mother is sitting on the cot - her back against
the wall, her legs pulled up to her chest, and her arms wrapped
around them. She looks defeated, like she's given up.

The third and
fourth pictures show them each being injected with something - then
all the photos after that show them transforming into something no
longer human.

Zombies.

When I pick up the
last picture, the food I had just eaten - and which has been spinning
around inside my stomach since I first started looking at these
pictures - comes gushing out into the empty vase I manage to grab off
the nearby table just in time.

God no!

Please no!

Jake, how could
you?

Who the hell are
you - and what the hell have I done?

I have to warn
my family!

I set the vase on
the floor and put the pictures back in the bag. Then I pull out my
cell - but my heart's banging so frikken hard I have to stop and
breathe a few times, afraid I'm truly having a heart attack.

Once I've settled
down a little, I dial Will's cell. After three rings, my anxiety
increases. In the middle of the fourth ring, it's answered.

"Canada! Baby,
where are you?"

Jake!

"Where's Will,
Jake?"

He sighs loudly.

"He's
a little busy right now. Where are
you
?"
he asks again impatiently.

I hang up.

No! Oh, hell no!

Where's my
husband?

Did Jake do
something to him?

How stupid am I
for leaving Will with Jake anyway, after everything that has already
happened?

I call my mom next.

"Canada!
Honey, where are you?" she asks me, deeply concerned. In the
background, I can hear several voices of my family all talking at
once, asking about me.

"I'm ok, I'm
safe. Mom, have you heard from Will?"

"Yes.
He told us you left them at a gas station and took off on your own.
Honey, he told us what Jake had said and it's not true. We know
you
didn't kill Sara. There were bloody military boot prints leading away
from her body."

"Mom,
I
am
wearing military boots!" I remind her, my hope that it isn't
true disappearing.

"No.
No, you're not." I look down towards my feet, confused.
Yes.
Yes, I am.
"You, my darling daughter, are wearing
one
military boot. There were three prints leading away from Sara's body
-a left foot and two right feet - and only two had enough blood on
them to be from more than a good well-deserved ass-beating."

"So that
means...but no one else was there!"

"Do
you remember when you asked Rose where Jake was? And then when he
came outside he told you both he'd been in the bathroom? Well, after
your sister told us about
that
,
I knew exactly what he'd been up to. I was in the kitchen when he
came flying in the back door - breathing hard like he'd been running.
The silencer was on his gun, which I clearly saw before he got it put
away. Then there was the blood he left on my clean kitchen floor
that, at the time, I assumed was from all the zombie-killing he'd
been doing.

"Rose
was just upset when she talked to you - she's the one who found
Sara's body and it scared the hell out of her - but at the time she
talked to you, she didn't know yet what we'd found in the barn. And
she's
very
sorry about what she said to you. Then Will told us about the second
call from Jake. There never
was
a second call, Canada. And Dustin
wasn't
on his way to meet you. Will thought Jake had planned to do something
to him and take you away."

I
gasp and terror makes my head spin for a few moments. "Mom,"
I choke out. "I just called Will's phone and Jake answered. He
said Will was "
busy
."
Oh my god, Mom! He killed him!"

"Where are
you? And stop thinking the worst has happened. You don't know that."

"I'm
in a house about twenty miles or so east of Hill City. It's on the
left side of the road, has a long driveway, and sits on top of a
really high cement base. I think the house is light green or light
blue. And there's about a dozen steps up to the porches on both sides
of the house. Oh, and there's a two-car garage in the back. My -
Jake's
- Hummer is inside."

"Alright,
we'll find it. Just stay calm and stay safe. We love you."

"Love
you guys too, Mom," I tell her in a little girl voice because I
feel
like a little girl who needs her mama to make everything all better.
Then I remember to tell her about Mel. "And, Mom, please keep
your eyes open for Will."

"We will. See
you soon."

"Ok,
Mom. See you s―
Wait
!
There are a bunch of zombies here too, so be careful." I tell
her.

She responds "Will
do" and we hang up.

It's easy to tell
myself not to worry about Will and what
might
have happened to him, but it's a whole different story trying to
actually do it.

I go back to Jake's
bag and search inside for anything I might have missed. I feel
something in one of the inside zippers and when I pull the objects
out, I just stare at them as they lay in my lap.

What
the hell? Is this Greg's stuff? Jake's? Does
he
have a medical condition too?

Lined up in a row
on my lap are at least a dozen syringes. In a pile beside them are
about that many dark brown vials. There's no label to tell me what
the vials contain so I have no idea how important they may be. I
place them back inside the bag along with the rest of the items, zip
it up, and set it on the floor beside my chair. Then I lean back and
just let my body relax, even if my mind can't.

Mel
stirs, but doesn't wake, and I watch her for a few minutes before
picking my cell up again. I push the icon for internet and hold my
breath as I wait to see if it'll connect. It does and I search for
any missing girls named Melody -
I
wish I'd gotten her last name!
- and start by checking the state of Missouri.

The first picture
and story to pop up is definitely my Mel. I click on it and read the
story. It's a shorter, not-as-detailed version of what Mel had told
me - her parents, the cops, and media not being privy to the exact
details as she was. But it also fills me in on the details Mel had
not been privy to as well. First of all, her parents have never
stopped looking for her, which I was certain they hadn't.

There
were also many tips - most wrong - such as the kidnappers were a
couple in their twenties, it was a single middle-aged man who took
her, and some idiot reported it was an older woman in her
eighties...
who
was in a frikken wheelchair
!

The
reported vehicles the kidnappers used were a small dark green car, a
white van, and even an ice cream truck. To screw up the investigation
even more, people reported several different directions that the
kidnappers had gone.

Why
are people so media-starved that they will endanger a child's life by
making shit up? Nothing they had reported had even been
close
to the truth! The kidnappers were both in their forties, they have a
gray SUV, and probably came straight to their home.

Melody had been
kidnapped from St. Thomas, which is only about half an hour's drive
south of here.

I
can't believe they were so stupid to kidnap a child so close to their
own home! Well, never mind. People who hurt kids like this, and
worse, are stupid anyway.

I find the contact
number, but it's for St. Thomas police department. Almost certain I
won't get a response, I dial the number anyway and jump in surprise
when the clatter of the phone sounds in my ear.

But then I hear the
grunts of someone who should have been dead and silent.

I disconnect the
call and sigh. Then a new thought forms. I now know Mel's last name
and her parents' names. Getting back on the internet, I pull up a
website for finding a person's phone number. Typing in Alan and
Jessie Hunter, I immediately get a hit. I push the "Call"
option and ringing fills my ear.

I expect no answer
- or maybe another zombie - so when a living man says, "Hello?"
I jump again and go mute.

"Hello? Is
anyone there? We need help," he pleads for a voice to respond.

"Um, hi. Is
this Mr. Hunter? Alan Hunter?" I ask, my voice not nearly as
strong as I would like it to be.

"Yes! Who's
this?"

"Well, um. You
don't know me Mr. Hunter, but I believe you may be able to help me."

Shit!

How do I tell
them about their daughter?

I mean, do I
just come right out and say it, or do I ease into it?

"Help
you
?
Ma'am,
we
need help. We can't leave our home because of these damn zombies, and
we're afraid to drink the water because who knows how this started -
and we are very close to being out of food. We have two cans of baked
beans left. I
hate
baked beans! We're stuck upstairs and my wife and I are getting sick
of each other's company―"

"Sir!" I
interrupt his rant, as understandable as it is. "I can try to
help you and your wife get out of there, but right now I have
something bigger to tell you."

"What?"
he asks, curious in what I have to say now.

"Sir, I
believe I've found your daughter." I wait for his reaction,
holding my breath.

After a long moment
of silence, I hear what sounds like heavy, unsteady breathing. I jump
and suck in my breath when his voice, strong with anger, blasts
through the phone.

"You
bitch
!
How dare you call and say something like that, especially at a time
like this! You people are sick and you disgust me!" And then a
beep signals he'd hung up on me.

Obviously
they've had enough prank calls by this time that they've given up on
any real hope of her being found.

People are sick!

I look over at
Melody and see her beautiful little face. She gives me the strength
to hit redial without hesitation, determined that these people are
going to listen to me.

"Stop calling
us, you sick bitch!" the man screams into the phone.

"Mr. Hunter,"
I scream back with steel in every syllable. "If you would stop
being such a jackass, I can prove I have Melody right here with me."

"Fine. Try and
do that." His voice drips with hatred and disgust.

"Fine.
I
will
!
She has black hair and blue eyes, and was kidnapped on her fifth
birthday from a pizza party. She―"

"So you can
read and watch TV. Not good enough."

"If
you would shut the hell up and
listen
to me, maybe you'll hear something you didn't post or broadcast, you
ass!" My own anger comes through loud and clear. "She had
'twelve
whole
friends'
at the party" -
apparently,
she says that a lot, as the man gasps
- "she had a big pink princess cake. You always called her Mel,
and she says 'baffroom' for bathroom, 'din't' for didn't, and she
calls the pizza place you had her party at 'Kid Plant' instead of Kid
Planet. Sound familiar, Mr. Hunter?" Only when I stop talking do
I hear his sobs.