Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (18 page)

He rotated his head to evaluate me and deduced, “There’s more you want to add to that.”

“Well, yes, I want… Everything is so much…in doubt…and all we do is hold ourselves back from what makes us happy. At some point, we’ll start to question whether we’re living or just surviving.”

“So you’re suggesting…,” he speculated, “that we stop holding ourselves back?”

“Exactly. Let’s hold each other’s hands in the presence of others. Kiss me if you have the urge. Hold me when you need me next to you.” I sighed tiredly. “I’m exhausted from holding back.”

He laughed again, wryly. “Kennedy, do you have any idea what would happen if I
didn’t
hold back? When your lips come in contact with mine, I barely have the will to pull away. When you walk in the room, nothing else exists. When you brush by me, it takes every bit of my resolve to keep myself from reaching for you. And you ask me to stop holding back? I think you underestimate how much letting go would be a dangerous proposition.”

“I don’t mind danger.”

He exhaled through his nose. “I’ve noticed.”

His head began rocking slowly from side to side as he fell deep in thought. “Sometimes I wonder which is more hazardous, my attraction to you or your attraction to me.”

“Neither,” I replied instantly.

He sighed. “I was expecting that response from you.”

I was about to acknowledge that remark when my entire body was violently thrown to the side. Only Harrison’s arms kept me from flying down the metal container we sat inside. Below us, the wheels screeched to a trembling halt, rattling us and the walls that contained us, until the rig stopped and silence surrounded us.

We listened for growls and hisses, for Lou to call out to us, for anything that might tell us the kind of situation we’d just landed ourselves in. Harrison stood, perplexed by whatever it was his adept ears were picking up, cautiously walking toward the door as if he were drawn there.

Hastily, he returned and pulled me to my feet. That got my heart racing. It must have worried the others, because they stood too.

I turned my rifle’s safety off as Doc, Mei, and Beverly adjusted their weapons. Christina stood firm, but a step behind. The rest huddled together at the rear of the trailer, most with hands clamped over their mouths in shock or to keep their cries from escaping.

I waited for Harrison to look at me, to give me some clue as to what was outside our large metal box, or large metal casket, take your pick, but the only action he made was to lean closer to the door.

That was when I heard it, the undefined commotion of voices running over one another, forcing my heart into a staggered leap. Only when partial, but distinct words rose over the din did my pulse resume a solid rhythm. It had returned to normal until the door began to roll up. By then, I’d lowered my weapon, expecting to see Lou standing on the other side with his semi-permanent frown welcoming us down from the truck trailer. Instead, I saw a row of muzzles pointed directly at us.

CHAPTER 10

“
O
UT, ONE AT A TIME.”

The command came through the dark, the man’s breath producing a puff of steam that drifted through the beams of flashlights pointed at us in the still winter air.

Harrison turned fully around to face me, pointed at the rifle and used our hand signals to tell me to give it to him. Knowing he wasn’t going to use it and realizing that whoever held it would be made a target, I disagreed with a shake of my head.

Undeterred, he reached for the sling and took it off my shoulder with such speed I didn’t have time to respond. By the time I figured out what had happened, he was already facing the muzzles, his broad back carving a black silhouette into the white beams aimed our way.

“Rifle! He’s got a rifle!” someone shouted not far beyond the lights. One of the beams quivered, which identified the shouter.

The man who had commanded us to exit the trailer advanced into the row of lights. His movement was calculated, poised which told me that he was the one leading these idiots. He was built like a tank, large and clunky but with enough weight to do some damage. In a sign that cold and pain didn’t bother him, he wore a black tee-shirt and camouflage pants, and he had a large metal spoon hanging by yarn around his neck.

“The rifle,” he stated with authority.

“We won’t use it on you,” Harrison replied without moving.

“No you won’t, because you won’t be given the chance. Slide it off the truck, kid.
Do it now
.” His last command was chilling, even to me.

Harrison remained in place. “It’s the only weapon we have against the Infected.”

When he said this, I knew what he was doing, giving Doc, Mei, and Beverly a hall pass, hoping these people wouldn’t frisk us and find their weapons. Beverly’s was relatively exposed but she lowered it to the ground in a gesture that reflected it as a walking stick.

Noting this, Harrison knelt and let the rifle fall to the ground. The sight of it left a hole in my chest for several reasons. My weapon, that had become an extension of myself, was leaving our grasp and exposing us to potential danger. Despite this, it was a good exchange, my rifle—which was a loud calling card to the Infected when fired—for secretly retaining Doc, Mei, and Beverly’s silent blades.

Once delivered, Harrison immediately stood and squared his shoulders to block me from their view. It was a sweet gesture but not long lived as we were forced to leave the trailer and line up at its bumper.

Someone forced Lou into the light and he stumbled, but Christina rushed to help him and glared back at those standing behind the lights for it.

They ransacked the trailer then, finding only our backpacks for loot. Still, this seemed like a real windfall for them so I got the impression they weren’t faring so well.

There seemed to be ten of them, but with the flashlights blinding us it was hard to be sure. The ones who boarded Lou’s rig were slender but not gaunt, so if what they were doing to survive was piracy on the roadways it was working for them, not well, but working.

Two details struck me as I snuck looks at them. First, they all seemed like the neighborly type, a little dirtier, a little desperate, but the kind you would hold a conversation with at the mailbox if you happened to cross paths. Second, each one had a half moon scar along the length of their neck, some freshly minted and lined with swollen redness.

Throughout the duration, the man in charge stood staring us down, legs apart, his lips in a thin, tight line as he assessed us. Several times, his eyes returned to and stayed on Harrison, which made me uneasy. That feeling spiked when Harrison’s eyes left the man and searched the dark. Finding insult in this, the man took a step in his direction, lip curled up and muscles flexed ready to do harm, only to be stopped by the distant sound of a growl.

“The lights,” someone said nervously and flicked his off.

“Turn it back on,” the man in charge threatened.

Instantly, the beam shot outward.

The men paused and listened.

The growl came again, blending with another. They were closer now.

The men seemed unnerved, shifting from foot to foot and darting glances over their shoulders.

Leisurely, the man in charge lifted his index finger and rotated it in the air, signaling for them to leave.

Several of the men grabbed the arms of Lou and others to force them off the road, but they were stopped.

“No, take them,” the brawny man decided, and several of his men’s eyebrows rose, indicating this would be a first for them.

As he headed for the cab with Lou, the rest of us were shoved up and into the back of the trailer along with several of his men, weapons aimed at us and not the Infected. I was distinctly aware of the man who held my rifle, which was covering Christina and Beverly, and of the movement of soiled, disheveled bodies emerging from the dark and entering the cascading halo of the flashlights in pursuit of Lou’s rig. As we picked up speed and they faded into the darkness, my focus fell entirely on my rifle.

“You’ll get it back,” Harrison remarked quietly, having picked up on my concentration of it.

“I better,” I whispered.

After the first hour, the drive seemed endless, although any length of time is long when muzzles are pointed at you.

I counted two shotguns, two rifles (mine not included) and three handguns.

The men appeared stern but I got the feeling it was only to dissuade us from attempting to strike back. Several of them looked like they’d never held a gun in their life. I almost felt sorry for them, almost.

“Keep your finger out of the trigger guard,” I told one of them.

His eyebrows furrowed. “The what?”

“Your finger, keep it straight along the barrel until you’re ready to shoot.”

He nodded, and seemed to remind himself of this rule.

I would have instigated a retaliation right then if I could be sure the fools wouldn’t accidentally discharge their weapons in their panic.

When we stopped, we were escorted with impolite shoves into a warehouse. Given that it was night, I couldn’t be sure of our location but the sound of their voices echoed off the walls of buildings nearby. A cluster of vehicles was parked nearby, which men were exiting. They weren’t too far from the door we were entering, so I felt we were somewhat secluded.

Inside, we found more men and women, all with the same odd half moon mark on their necks. They materialized from behind rows of empty shelves or stood around the fires they had built on the concrete floor of the warehouse.

“Hmmm,” Beverly mumbled, “homey.”

Across the concrete floors, mattresses had been strewn, apparently retrieved from the dump, and piles of ash were gathered where wood logs blazed. Supplies of whatever they had looted were left uncategorized against one wall. The only elements of comfort seemed to be the recliners, shiny new ones, encircling their makeshift fire pits. Judging by them, I figured we’d ended up in a storage warehouse for the manufacturer.

The man who led this group commanded one man to keep his muzzle on us as he held a brief discussion with another scrawnier man who shared the same long nose and shifty eyes. Transferring his rifle nervously from one arm to the other several times, covering everyone in the warehouse as he did it, it was easy to see that this relative was
not
in charge but clearly assumed the role when the man with the spoon was gone.

Harrison’s ability to judge others must have started rubbing off on me by then because it was painfully obvious that these two men were power hungry.

Once their discussion came to an end, the stockier man marched across the floor to Harrison and made a motion to grab him by the shoulder. I began to step in but Harrison gestured me back while avoiding the man’s swipe. A tense moment of staring followed until the man’s eyes snapped to me. Harrison immediately stepped forward and the man hauled him back across the warehouse. He stopped short in front of another man squatting before his crude fire pit.

“What do you think, Surge?” he demanded.

I had known a Surge once, one of my dad’s buddies. He was an Italian gigolo with more brawn than brains. The name definitely didn’t fit the man being addressed. He was Indian with round spectacles and slender limbs that I could guarantee hadn’t lifted anything heavier than twenty pounds in his life. But what Surge lacked in structure, he made up for in intellect. He was astute, his eyes telling more than his words as he lingered resentfully in front of the man with the spoon dangling from his neck. Then he began surveying Harrison.

After a few agonizingly long minutes, he replied, his voice thick with accent, “Nothing to worry about, Ian.” To reinforce his answer, he did his best interpretation of an inconsequential shrug. “He isn’t one of The Sick.”

Apparently, Ian’s speculation remained unchanged because he gave Harrison a cold look before towing him back to our lineup.

“I don’t care what Surge says,” Ian hissed, leaning into Harrison.

Harrison stood his ground, meeting with his own solid resistance.

“There’s something wrong about you, kid.”

Narrowing his eyes at Harrison in warning, he spun on his heel and marched to the closest fire.

I watched him, realizing that for all the complexity of this man, there was one thing certain about him. He had an intuition and it was fairly exact.

“Keep the gun on him,” Ian said.

The warehouse quieted as our hosts went back to whatever they had been doing before our arrival, which really wasn’t anything but trying to stay warm in the frosty night air. Eventually, Lou’s knee gave out on him and he fell to the floor where he stayed.

When Ian returned to us, he walked the line, paying special attention to Harrison before taking a place before us, like a commanding officer.

“You are here because I am allowing it to be. You are my rescues and you will behave accordingly. You will do as I say, when I say it, without question.” He paused to sweep us with a steely gaze. “Now move to the fire.”

Lou had trouble standing, so Harrison and I made a move to help him.