Odium II: The Dead Saga (9 page)

“Don
’t do stupid shit like that anymore, Nina.” I can tell he’s still angry and trying to control his temper. The kiss seemed to take the edge off it though.

He knows me, he knows how I work, and after what we
’ve been through together, he also knows that losing his temper with me will only cause me to dig my heels in more. I’m not stupid, I know he’s playing me, but I’d prefer him to play me than be a nag.

I pout, still reeling from his kiss, still wanting more
, feeling dizzy and intoxicated. “I’m not going to break. I’m not as fragile as you might think.”

His hand strokes my cheek, a
softness in his face now that the frown has gone. “No, but maybe I am.” I stare at him, confused, before he continues. “I can’t lose you again.”

M
y heart starts beating heavily in my chest:
baboom, baboom, baboom
. Of course it was always beating—I’m not a deader or some shit like that—but up until this point, it was always a low thud. Just your standard run-of-the-mill heartbeat, nothing to see here, move along everyone at your easy steady pace. However, when I look into his face—in his eyes—I see how much I mean to him, and my heart is practically bursting out of my chest with warm glow fuzziness.

“Okay, I
’m sorry. Don’t lecture me.” I smirk. He tries to say something else, but I lean in and kiss him, needing to feel his mouth on mine once more. I thought after what had happened to me that I would be pulling away from contact like this, that I wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of his kiss or touch, but the reality is, mentally—and maybe physically—I’m desperate for some kindness, some softness in my life. I survived similar behind the walls, and while they took my body, my mind was my own. I let the kiss come to its natural end, and we stand forehead to forehead and I smile. Finally I grab his hand and begin to pull him back into the other room.

“I
’m serious, Nina, stop doing crazy shit all the time.”

“Stop nagging now,
” I chuckle.

I feel guilty. I should have told him h
ow much his words meant to me—how much that kiss meant to me—but I can’t, for some reason. There are some walls that won’t break, no matter how much I want them to.

“They could be poisoned or something you know.” Emily points out the obvious as we all stare into our open cans of food, each with our own delicacy staring up at us. I have the chopped tomatoes, Alek the tuna, Emily the SpaghettiOs, and Mikey the beans.

I poke my
tomatoes with my fork. “It seems such a waste. Surely no one would waste food like this.” They look so delicious, all red and juicy. I snag some onto the end of my fork and bring it to my nose to sniff. Everyone watches me with wide eyes. “Smells like tomatoes.” I shrug. I dip my tongue onto the end of the fork, barely letting it touch them. My taste buds flare to life with that one small taste, both tangy and juicy. I simply can’t resist any longer as pangs of hunger cripple my stomach, and so I tip the contents into my mouth before I can change my mind.

So much for not doing stupid shit anymore.

“Nina!” Mikey yells, but he doesn’t do anything to stop me.

Everyone is staring at me,
their mouths open in horror, shock, and wide-eyed jealousy. I chew the contents, both enjoying and hating it all at the same time, and swallow.

“It tastes good.” I offer a
nother small shrug, accompanied by a large growl from my stomach. Everyone stares at my stomach in horror. “I think it’s saying thank you, and it wants more.” I smirk.

Emily grins
. “To hell with it.” She sticks her fork into the SpaghettiOs, the little circles catching on the long fingers of the fork. She brings it to her mouth and copies my earlier action of smelling, tasting, and then stuffing the rest in greedily. She groans and closes her eyes. “So good,” she mumbles.

That
’s all it takes for Alek and Mikey to join in, stuffing their faces with beans and tuna, throwing caution to the wind. It’s not until after all the food has gone that we all look around with worry—now that our stomachs have a little something in them and the hunger pangs have died off a little that we think about the possible consequence of our actions.

Emily wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and gives a little burp. “That was amazing.
” She pauses, scooping more onto her fork. “I remember the last time I had SpaghettiOs, it was a couple of weeks before everything…went bad. It was my dad’s turn to cook, since Mom was working late. He was an awful cook, though, so I threw a can of
O
s into a pan and made some toast and we sat and ate it together at the counter in the kitchen. Dad said they were the best damn SpaghettiOs he’d ever had.” She smiles proudly at the memory. “Never thought I’d get to eat those cheery little
O
s again.”

My mouth quirks up in a half
smile—how could I not smile at that?

“What if they were poisoned?” s
he whispers, her happy memory dissipating before my eyes.

“Shit,
” Mikey whispers. “I’m blaming you.” He looks around at all of us. “All of you.” He points a finger at us all and then belches loudly.

“Nina, what
should we do?” Emily asks, even as her hand dips back inside the can and rubs some of the leftover sauce onto her fingertips, and she begins to suck them clean.

“I don
’t know. I guess we wait and see what happens.” Guilt consumes me. What if I’ve sentenced these people to death? I watch Alek scraping his fork around to get the last bits of tuna out, and the guilt washes away. They more than likely would have decided to eat this food regardless of me.

“The food
wasn’t poisoned.”

We all look up at the young man
—a kid, really—that stands in the doorway. He can’t be more than seventeen, with shaggy dark hair and worried brown eyes. A young girl stands close behind him, blonde, short, and paler than snow. She reminds me a little of Emily, actually.

Mikey jumps up, lifting his
knife up in front of him. “Who the hell are you?” he growls.

The kid
backs up. “Whoa, easy, big fella.” He waves a gun in front of him. “Gotta bigger weapon than you, see?” He smiles, even as the young girl clings to his arm and tries to hush him. He must think he’s some kind of superhero to be pulling that crap with Mikey.

Alek stands up. “That do
n’t mean shit.” He smiles, and gone is the calm and controlled young man that I’ve gotten to know over the last couple of days; in his place is a vicious thug, a man that would make Fallon proud. I shiver.

I watch the encou
nter, empty can of chopped tomatoes still firmly in my grip, without moving. The kid in the doorway stops smiling, his eyes flitting between Alek and Mikey. I know Mikey’s evil glare and, well, we’ve already discussed Alek’s.

“If I wanted to kill yo
u, I would have done it already,” the kid snaps. Neither Alek nor Mikey back down, both continuing to give him the stink eye. “All right, all right, we come in peace!” He backs up, stumbling into the blonde girl, who lets out a little yelp.

“Put down
your fucking gun,” Mikey shouts.

The kid
looks at the weapon and then back to Mikey. “I can’t do that!” His voice goes up an octave too high, revealing his youth. “You guys could kill me.”

“Says t
he kid with the gun aimed at us,” I quip.

He looks down at his weapon
and then back up to me before stuffing it down the back of his pants. He offers a nervous smile as he shows us his empty hands. “Better?”

“Much.” I finally stand back up, leaving my can on the little coffee table. I place a hand on Mikey
’s shoulder. “Down, boys.” Mikey glares at me, Alek continues to glare at the young man in the doorway, and I glare at everyone. “And you are?” I point to the young man and his timid girlfriend.

“I
’m Dean. This is Anne. We were the ones that left you the food.” He smiles hopefully. “And with due respect, I’m not a kid.”

The tension in the air still hasn
’t broken.

I cross my arms in front of me. “We
’ve been here since yesterday and only now you introduce yourselves. Why now—kid?”

“Because you
’re going around and breaking into everyone’s houses.” He sounds angry as he continues. “I thought you would get bored after a while and decide to leave like everyone else, but you didn’t. You kept going around breaking things and making a mess. Do you know how hard it’s been keeping everything clean and tidy?”

I snort out a laugh. “Sweetheart, I think a little
dusting should be the least of your worries right now. And while we’re asking questions, where the hell are all the deaders?”

Anne shuffles
forward, tugging her bangs behind her ears. “You mean the sick people?”

I look from Anne to Mikey and then back again.
“Yeah, the really sick people—as in the dead ones! You know, the zombies?” My words make them both flinch. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like such a bitch, but seriously, where are they?”

Anne looks proudly to Dean. “He kept them away.”
She grips his forearm and keeps on smiling with doe eyes, as if we’re not here.

“
Um, how?” both Emily and I say at the same time.

“Dean
’s a whiz with electronics.” Anne grins, patting his arm. “He…uh…he should probably explain it. I’m no good with stuff like that.”

Dean
’s cheeks flush red and he smiles. “First, when are you leaving?”

I raise an eyebrow. “What
’s it to you?”

“This is our town, and you
’re going around breaking stuff. I don’t like it. I’ve given you some food, but we’d like you to leave.” Dean’s eyes swing to Mikey, who’s practically growling like a goddamned pit bull, almost making me want to laugh as Dean tacks onto the end of his sentence: “As soon as you can, please.” He smiles, trying to show his friendliness, like a dog baring its belly at its enemy.

“
Your town? This is a free country now, Dean. We were leaving today, since we didn’t find anything here worth staying for. Now, however…” I let my words trail off as I look to Alek. “I’m still feeling pretty hungry. How about you?”

Alek rubs a hand over his stomach
, still staring Dean down. “Starved.”

“
Fine, fine, we’ll bring you more food if you promise to leave. We don’t have much, though.” He backs out the doorway, Anne close behind. “Don’t go anywhere.”

We hear the click of the fron
t door as it closes behind them. Mikey runs up the stairs as soon as he hears it, and Alek runs to the main window. Emily shrugs, looking confused, and I grin. “Watching where they’re going, dumbass,” I say playfully.

“Oh.” She smiles.

Mikey comes back down a couple minutes later. “I watched them go through a gap in the fence of one of the houses across the street, but couldn’t see further than that.”

“Shouldn
’t we follow them?” I ask.

“How dangerous can two kids
be? Besides, they said they’d come back.” Mikey picks up his can and scrapes fingers around the rim, much the same way Emily had.

“What if they don
’t? What if it’s a trap?”

“Then we destroy stuff until they com
e back,” he says matter-of-factly. “And again, how tough can two kids be?”

I yawn and stretch, t
he little bit of food in my stomach making me feel sleepy despite the tension of the situation. I hardly slept the previous night; constant dreams of Rastas selling me skulls full of margarita cocktails kept waking me up.

I sit back down on the sofa, eager for more food, more answers
, and to get a little shuteye at some point today. The sofa isn’t particularly nice; it’s old fashioned with graying flowers printed on it. The dark stain on the arm of it, though, is more than likely what stops me from resting my head on it and getting in two minutes’ worth of a nap.

I
’m still eyeing the stain on the arm of the sofa when Dean and Anne return, loaded down with some more canned goods. We hear them stomping their boots on the welcome mat at the front door before coming inside and placing everything on the table in front of us.

“That okay?” Dean asks, h
is attitude gone now. I’m guessing Anne gave him a grilling when they left here, something along the lines of ‘stop trying to intimidate the guests, they’re bigger and scarier than you.’ Yeah, that would probably do it.

I grab a can from the
center—a small can of mushrooms—and start to open it up. “So, Dean, spill it. Where are the deaders? Where is everyone from this town? And do you have an OCD problem? Seriously, this place is way too clean for an apocalypse.” I peer inside the can of mushrooms with a grimace. I used to hate these things before everything happened; even starvation can’t make me like them. “Anyone want to swap?”

“I will.” Alek takes my can
and I take his, realizing my misfortune far too late.

“Canned spinach?” I sniff the contents
and gag, and look up at Dean. “Well, go on then, don’t let me stop you.”

“I don
’t have OCD,” he chuckles. “I just want everything to be as normal as possible for everyone when they get back.”

I
lift out a forkful of the disgusting spinach. “Who . . . gets back?” I say slowly, swallowing the slimy spinach down with a shudder.

“Everyon
e,” Anne replies softly.

“Everyone?”
I ask. Anne nods and I continue. “Like, everyone from this town?”

“Yeah.” She smiles.

“Where did they go?”

“They all ran
away when the sick arrived,” Anne says softly, her eyes filling with sadness.

I look around at my friends to see if they are getting the same
information as me, and wonder who is going to be the one to tell these poor kids the truth: that they won’t be having a family reunion anytime soon.