Lost World (14 page)

“That’s a novel idea, isn’t it? Actually telling you what I’m thinking.” I laugh. I can’t help it.

Jon smiles just a little. “I’d love to know what you’re thinking. I want to know you, Hadley.”

The idea of Jon knowing what’s really going on inside my head frightens me so much my legs start to shake. But I’m not sure if I have another option. If things keep going the way they are, I’ll end up driving him away. Then I’ll be alone. That scares me more than all the messed-up shit going on inside me put together.

I exhale, trying to blow some of the tension out of my body. It doesn’t really work, but we’re at a standstill. I just need to go for it.

“I want someone who is going to take care of me, Jon. I’m tired, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep going like this.” Tears fill my eyes, so I turn my face toward the sky. I don’t want him to see how much I hurt. “You keep looking to me to make all the decision. What are we going to do, Hadley? How are we going to get back? I don’t want someone depending on me to bring them through. I can barely get myself through one day.”

“Hadley,” Jon whispers.

I tear my eyes away from the blue sky and force myself to focus on him. His mouth turns down and his green eyes shimmer. He takes a step forward, then reaches up to touch my cheek. It’s gentle and nice, and for once the softness in his gaze doesn’t piss me off.

“I thought you wanted to be in charge. I thought you needed to be the one calling the shots, like it made you feel stronger. That’s all. I can be that man for you. I can take care of you. I want to take care of you.” He hesitates, sucking in a small breath like he isn’t sure whether or not he should say more. “I can take care of anything that comes along.”

Tears fill my eyes until everything in front of me is distorted, and I have to look away. He knows. If only that made all this easier to deal with.

“Let’s get a move on,” I say.

This time when I start walking, I take his hand.

11

IT HAS TO BE CLOSE TO noon when we head out of town. The sky is overcast, so we aren’t going to be able to depend on the sun to keep us going in the right direction. Luckily, Axl has a compass.

We don’t stick to the roads. We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work out. It’s too hard to hide when we come across other groups, and we never know who we can trust. So the four of us cut through the town and head through an open field, then to the woods. It makes the walk more difficult though, and I’m already exhausted. My legs are so heavy they feel like they’re weighed down. I’m not sure I’ll be able to go all day like this. If we don’t find a car, we’re going to have to stop somewhere to rest. There’s no doubt about it.

“Ten hours,” I say, doing the math in my head as we trudge through the woods. “We can’t have more than six hours of daylight left.”

“We’ll stop if we have to,” Parvarti says, not slowing for even a second to look back at me. Her legs may be shorter than everyone else’s, but she isn’t having trouble keeping up. If anything, I have to work to keep up with her.

The day drags on with very little change in scenery. Bare trees and fallen branches. Brown, shriveled leaves that crunch under our feet as we walk. We don’t pass any houses or other buildings other than an old, crumbling barn out in the middle of a field. It’s so surrounded by nothingness that I find myself wondering how in the world anyone ever got to the place. Then we’re back in the woods, once again surrounded by trees. Occasionally, we catch sight of a small animal or bird, but the forest is shockingly empty and quiet. No zombies, though, so that’s good.

We’ve been walking for close to four hours before we finally come across a house. It’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a fence that doesn’t look like it could keep a toddler out. The house looks like it’s ready to crumble to pieces at any moment. Most of the windows are covered in boards, and the ones that aren’t are cracked. The yard is littered with junk. Cars, old doors, washers, dryers. Pretty much everything imaginable. It looks like something out of the show
Hoarders
. On top of everything else, there are at least ten no trespassing signs. Hanging from trees, the fence, rusted-out cars. As if people are just dying to tear down this fence and steal the trash littering the yard.

“There’s no way,” I say, stopping five feet from the fence. “This place isn’t going to have anything that will be helpful.”

Angus spits on his way by me. “When’d you turn into such a snob? Just ‘cause he ain’t got money don’t mean he ain’t got somethin’ useful.”

“He has trash, Angus.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Parvarti says, following Angus.

Even Axl heads after them. “Come on. It ain’t gonna hurt.”

“It will if he’s alive and decides to shoot us so we don’t steal his rusty washing machine,” I mutter, following the others. “These were the kind of people who would kill you over nothing before all this started. What do you think he’s going to do now?”

No one answers and they keep walking. I guess I’ve been outvoted.

The front gate is barely hanging on. It creaks when Angus pushes it open, and I can’t help looking over my shoulder. We haven’t seen any zombies since the horde invaded the hot spring, but I know that won’t last. I’ve been waiting for something to attack us since we started walking. It’s coming, I know it is. We just have to be prepared.

Angus knocks on the front door.

“Are you serious?” I hiss. “Why would you knock?”

“So he knows we’re friendly. Don’t want him shootin’, now do we?”

He has a point, but I’m not feeling any better about the situation.

No one comes to the door—and no one shoots—so Angus knocks again. After another minute or so of silence, he pushes the door open. It creaks even louder than the gate did.

Angus goes in, and Axl is right behind him. Parvarti doesn’t make a move to follow.

“You staying out here?” I ask, pausing next to her.

“Want to keep an eye on things.” She doesn’t even move her gaze from the forest in front of her. “I’ll yell if I see trouble.”

I look back and forth between the house and Parvarti while I chew on my bottom lip. The idea of leaving her alone makes me nervous. We don’t go anywhere by ourselves these days. “You want me to stay?”

Parvarti finally looks away from the woods, and her brown eyes hold mine. She’s about a head shorter than I am, but the expression on her face is so fierce she seems bigger. Older even. “I’m good.”

She’s probably right. From here nothing would really be able to sneak up on her, and she’s such a good shot with the bow she’d be able to take a few zombies out before they got too close. Plus, I doubt we’ll be inside for very long.

“Okay,” I say, turning to follow the brothers. “We’ll keep it brief.”

I step inside the house and the stench is so overwhelming it almost knocks me down. I cover my nose as I glance around, but nothing about the smell sets off warning bells in my head. It isn’t death. It’s rotten food, urine, and animals of some kind. There’s so much stuff crowded into the small space it’s hard to tell where the stink is coming from, but with as much trash as this guy has shoved in here, I’d be willing to bet it smelled like this long before the virus hit.

The front room is stacked almost to the ceiling with old newspapers and magazines, making just standing in the room feel tight and confining. Like being in a cave. One of the piles has toppled over, leaving the papers scattered across the room. I pick one up at random and flip it over. It’s from January of 1980.

I toss the newspaper aside and shake my head. “This is a waste of time.”

“Don’t get your panties in a knot,” Angus says. “I’m just lookin’. This dude may seem crazy, but it was people like this that was prepared. Most of the shit they kept was useless.” He waves to a pile of plastic hangers. The kind you get when you buy a shirt at Wal-Mart. “But sometimes they’d have good stuff.”

“Useful? Are you serious right now? Nothing in here is going to be useful unless we suddenly learn magazines are edible.”

Axl exhales but doesn’t look at me. He’s sifting through a box on the other side of the room. “Stop bitchin’ and just look ‘round so we can get the hell outta here.”

My mouth drops open, and Angus flashes me a triumphant grin. Axl heads into another room without even glancing my way. Shit. That’s probably the first time he’s taken his brother’s side over mine since before the dead came back. He’s always telling Angus to shut up these days. What the hell is going on with everyone?

Angus follows his brother, but I turn the other way and head back outside. It stinks in the house, and despite what Angus says there is no way in hell we’re going to find anything useful. If they want to waste time digging through trash that’s their choice. I’m not going to.

Parvarti hasn’t move from her spot, and she doesn’t look my way when I step outside. “Find anything?”

“Junk. But Angus is convinced we’ve hit a gold mine.” I walk past her and head around to the side of the house. “I’m going to check out back. To prove Angus wrong if nothing else.”

“Have fun with that.”

The yard is so littered with garbage I have a hard time picking my way through it. It looks like this guy drove through neighborhoods on trash day and grabbed all the junk people put on their curbs. Old strollers, bikes, appliances, dog crates. You name it, he has it. It’s all dirty and rusty. I don’t see a single thing that would have been useful even if we did have electricity. It’s all been out in the weather too long.

I keep moving though. I want to be able to tell Angus I looked through all this shit and didn’t find a single treasure chest. Of course, even if we did find a chest full of treasure it would be useless now. Who the hell cares about gold when we can’t even find food half the time?

When I reach the middle of the yard, I stop and look around, turning in a complete circle so I can take it all in. My gaze moves over the trash and rusty cars, and when my eyes land on the doors, I almost laugh. The grass is so long I almost missed it, but right next to an old pile of microwaves is a cellar.

“Well, shit. If there’s something useful in here I’m going to have to apologize to Angus.”

Axl comes around the corner just as I head for the doors. “Find somethin’?”

“Maybe. There’s a cellar over here. Looks like it goes under the house. Anything inside?”

“Few cans of food. That’s ‘bout it,” Axl says, heading my way. Wading through the trash and knee-high grass.

He stumbles when his foot catches on something that’s hidden by the tall weeds, and I take a step toward him. “Be careful there.”

“I know,” Axl says, his tone sharp. He sounds like he’s irritated with me. Why, I don’t know, but I’m getting tired of everyone being so moody. We need to find a real place so we can all get some space and not be at each other’s throats so much.

I turn my back to him and pull my knife as I bend down to grab the door handle. Even though I’m slightly annoyed, I wait until Axl is by my side. It’s possible whoever owns this place went down to the cellar to live. Or to die.

The door is heavy, and I have to put all my weight into it so I can heave it open. It groans like it hasn’t been moved in years. I hold my breath and stand off to the side, pulling the door toward me. Axl has his gun up and ready, but nothing comes charging at us, so that’s good.

I dig out my flashlight and shine it into the cellar, illuminating the stairs and the dirt floor below. Still nothing moves.

“Toss something down.”

Axl picks up a rock and throws it into the cellar. It hits the ground and pings against something, echoing through the darkness. I hold my breath for a second time, but still nothing happens.

“Sounds clear,” he says.

Axl takes a step forward and I’m right behind him, shining my flashlight on the stairs so he can see what he’s doing. The steps are old, and the wood bows under our weight as we make our way down. The cellar itself is cement on all sides except the floor, which is dirt. The room is dank and musty. Old spider webs fill every corner and run from beam to beam above our heads. When we reach the bottom, I take a few minutes to move my flashlight across the room. It isn’t big, probably only six feet by six feet, but it’s lined with shelves. Shelves full of boxes.

“Point that over here,” Axl says.

I turn the beam his way as he takes a box off the shelf. It’s sealed with tape, so he pulls out his knife and runs it down the middle, then jerks the box open the rest of the way.

A big smile spreads across his face. “Holy shit.”

“What? What is it?”

I move closer just as he holds up a brown package.

“MREs. Looks like there are ‘bout ten in here. If all them boxes have the same thing in ‘em, we’re lookin’ at a hell of a lot of food.”

I pan the flashlight around again and count as I go. “There has to be close to a hundred boxes in here.”

“Yup.” Axl puts the open box down and grabs another. He rips it open, and it’s more of the same. “Problem is gonna be gettin’ them outta here. It ain’t like we can drive the Sam’s truck back this way. We’re gonna need to find something else.”

He’s right, which sucks, but at the moment I can only focus on one thing.

“I can’t believe Angus was right,” I mutter, shaking my head.

Axl laughs as he heads to the stairs, still holding a box in his hands. “Wait ‘til he sees this.”