Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (24 page)

Having been mesmerized by the Infected’s behavior, I forgot to keep up my shifting from foot to foot and found my toes beginning to prickle from the frost. My right leg lifted and was about to settle to the ground and get the circulation back into it when instinct made me step forward instead. Before I knew it, I was striding down the driveway, my eyes locked on where the Infected should have been.

I did this half-expecting them to return in one sweeping wave, slamming into the fence and bringing it down. For this reason alone I readied my rifle, switching the safety off and bringing it up to the firing position. That muzzle remained pointed at the gate the entire walk.

Stopping a few feet from the bars, I lowered my weapon and listened, for anything… a grunt, a hiss, the rustle of soiled clothing. But the night was as silent and dark as if I’d just woken up to find myself buried underground.

I had the urge to call out Harrison’s name, to make sure he was all right, but that seemed ridiculous. He wouldn’t be anywhere near the gate. He’d jumped the fence to the east to avoid the Infected.

Still, I remained there for an hour, searching the darkness for movement. When there was no longer any feeling in my toes and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably, I started back, partly ridiculing myself for having waited that long and partly keeping my ears open for any sounds behind me. Despite my effort, I didn’t hear the body approaching me from the right; I saw it, coming across the soccer field at a good pace.

I swung toward it, lifting my rifle in its direction, trying to end the shivering that was disturbing my aim. My finger was already inside the trigger guard and my body had settled into the Weaver stance before he spoke.

“You should be inside by now.” The voice was relaxed, despite my barrel aimed at the owner’s head.

“Harrison?” My own voice came out sounding in awe, but carried an undertone somewhere between perturbed and fuming.

“Have you been out here the entire time?” he asked, ignoring the fact I had almost shot him. “I thought you’d go back inside after I left.”

“Are you k-kidding?”

“No, aren’t you cold?”

“Y-y-yes.”

Shaking his head, he wrapped his arms around me.

“I th-thought…The Infected at the gate left and…”

“I know.”

“Y-you do?”

He nodded. “Come on. I can tell you’re freezing.”

“H-How…?”

“Your teeth are clacking.”

“N-n-no,” I said, allowing him to lead me back to the primary building’s front entrance. “H-How did y-you kn-know…?”

“Kennedy, is your question time-sensitive?”

I thought about it. “N-no.”

“Okay, then let’s get you inside and defrosted. You’re in the first stage of hypothermia.”

It dawned on me that he was right. I had been so bent on watching for dangers outside the fence that I hadn’t considered the one surrounding me.

Inside, he took me upstairs but I objected midway to my room.

“Th-the gate…”

“It’s safe for now. There aren’t any more Infected near us.”

I tried to nod but the muscles in my neck had tightened so it came as more of a flop.

When he closed my bedroom door, his fingers immediately went about unzipping his jacket.

“Wh-What are you d-d-d…”

“I’m warming you up,” he said, slipping off his jeans.

In the moonlight, the definition of his leg muscles was seductive and I was momentarily stunned. When he pulled his shirt over his head, it exposed the rest of him and my breath caught.

In the fleeting moment it took for him to cross the space between us, I drank up the sight of him. His chest rippled with each swing of his arms as he came for me, assured and strong. His legs, their blend of muscles curving over themselves, swollen from exertion, moved steadily, controlled and determined. His chiseled hips shifted with purpose, as if they were designed to come directly to me, only me. In his truest form, naked from head to toe, he moved as I’d predicted he would, rough, decisive, and unwavering. But when he touched me, as his fingers settled over my clothes, he was gentle, cajoling, making me want to move wherever he put me.

He set my rifle by the bed and returned to where I stood to unzip my jacket and strip it from my shoulders. His fingers curled below the hem of my layers of shirts and pulled upward until they were freed and dropped to the floor. He stepped closer then, wrapping one arm around me. His other hand came between us, his fingers working at the buttons to free my layers of pants.

“You’ll feel warmer soon,” he told me, his breath hot across my face.

I swallowed, because that’s all I could manage to do.

When the freezing air hit my legs, I winced and he reacted instantly, picking me up and carrying me to the bed. The weight of our bodies sank into the mattress, wrapping the sides around us to create a barrier, but it was Harrison’s body, the heat he emitted, that made my muscles loosen and ended my body’s tremors. One of his hands remained folded around me while the other tenderly worked its way up and down the indent of my back, pressing me into his chest, closer to his heat.

“D-did you e-e-eat?”

“There’s a steer ranch a few miles east.”

“G-good.”

He slid his leg over mine for added cover. I was acutely aware of his hips then, and how close they were to mine.

“Until I met you,” he said, his lips moving against my forehead, “I thought of bodies as nothing more than a compilation of organs, some skin over them, some plumbing inside.”

“Not a pretty sight.”

“No, functional.”

“And now?”

“When I look at you,” he whispered, “I don’t see plumbing.”

A giggle escaped from me, which he met with his own deep, rumbling chuckle.

When we quieted, I felt his lips grazing my temple, warming me in a different way.

“And now what do you see?” I asked.

His hand stopped at the middle of my back as if he suddenly grew nervous, but when he answered his tone was open, honest. “I see beauty, Kennedy, breathtaking beauty.”

Silence filled the frosty air, although his hand started again, caressing me, making my skin prickle with excitement everywhere he touched.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He answered with a kiss to my cheek and another to my lips.

We didn’t speak again. Instead, he used his hands to show me how he felt. This was how I fell asleep, his strokes coaxing the cold from my body, his arms and legs swathing me in passionate warmth.

When I woke, his side of the bed was empty but still warm. The sun was up and there were voices outside my door and window. The room was bare, no Harrison, no posters, no books, no useless items cluttering the shelves. The stark white walls greeted me with blinding brightness, forcing me to get up and put on my clothes.

The halls were filled with people but the one person I was looking for didn’t appear. When I found Doc and Mei in the dining area and asked about Harrison, they gave me detailed instructions on how to get to the roof. I found him there, standing with one foot on either side of the beam, surveying the woods that surrounded us.

The Infected at the gate were gone as he had promised and they hadn’t returned. There was no movement inside the yellow school busses and the doors were opened. This should have alarmed me, but I already knew what had happened to them.

“When did you figure it out?” I asked.

At the sound of my voice, he looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. “Good morning.”

We both knew he’d heard me, or sensed me in some way, before I ever made it to the roof but it was appealing to see him play it off.

“It is good,” I said, smiling and stopping behind him. “Thank you for last night.”

Turning around to face me, he replied, “I’d have to say that was more my pleasure than yours.”

I laughed through my nose and his grin deepened. To avoid my cheeks flushing, I scanned the woods around us. “See anything out there?”

“No, nothing nearby for now,” he surmised.

“So, when did you figure it out?” I repeated, returning my gaze to him. “That they’re attracted to you.”

He blinked and his grin faded.

“I saw it too,” I confessed, “but I think I’m the only one.”

That seemed to give him some relief. He took a seat and waited for me to do the same.

“
How
did you see it?” he asked, continuing to gape at me in wonder.

“I saw it those first few weeks at school, when they trailed you at the fence. And when exposed, they always go after you, like in Milton’s Coffee Shop, on the interstate, in the warehouse. Still, it was just a hunch…until you confirmed it.”

He laughed to himself, pondering what I’d said, seemingly impressed by it.

“So,” I persisted, “when did you know?”

“I uh…,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve been picking up on it too. When I was on the wall with Claire, no one could see the Infected on the other side, and I think Claire was too panicked to notice, but they came at me, even though Claire was closer to them. They were…drawn to me.” He took in an unsteady breath and exhaled uncomfortably. “I wasn’t completely sure either, until I tested it.”

“Which you did last night,” I concluded.

Again, he nodded, this time slower, hesitant to upset me.

“I couldn’t tell you what I was doing, you’d never allow it.”

“You’re right.”

He restrained a smile and continued his thought. “So when I jumped the wall last night, I led them away.”

My memory of the Infected at the gate, rotating around and rushing into the night, came tearing back to me. The image of Harrison doing this, provoking them, raced through my mind and every muscle in my body stiffened despite the threat having passed.

He nodded and replied sheepishly, “Yeah…”

It took several long seconds for me to calm my anger. When I did, I still spoke through clenched teeth.

“That wasn’t a worthwhile test. They would have followed you anyways.”

“I waited.”

It took a second for me to understand what he meant. “You waited?” I asked in disbelief.

My question was rhetorical but he explained it anyways. I allowed him, hoping I’d misunderstood, but I was dead on.

“I snuck up behind them, stood there, and waited.” He began to stare out over the treetops, seeming to recall it. “A few seconds. That’s all it took, Kennedy, before they turned around.”

I know he was expecting me to be stirred by his discovery, at least as much as he was, but I had a different reaction.

“So…,” I said, drawing in an unsteady breath. “You do have a death wish…”

He laughed under his breath. “Maybe,” he whispered. “Maybe…”

And I got the sense that he did, to keep me and all others safe. But I didn’t want to go there, or delve into that possibility because I had no control over whether he did have one or whether he’d act on it. And that realization left me feeling sick.

“You didn’t lead the others away,” I noted, trying to change my line of thought. “The ones we’ve come across so far.”

“No,” he said, dipping his head.

“Why these Infected?”

His head began shaking back and forth telling me that he was trying to wipe away the reasoning. “They were just kids.” He lifted his head to search for understanding in my eyes. “Just kids, Kennedy. Kids. How could…Why…? I…I don’t…”

He fell silent and I took his hand, hoping it would give him some comfort.

“You know, when my dad died, I did the same thing, questioned the existence of things, the order of it. I tried to put everything into perspective. I read up on different religions, visited places of worship, talked with holy men. When the nightmares started, I got really scared. I would wake up in a sweat, screaming and I thought, I really thought I was losing it. Gone, like they said had happened to my dad. But then, the nightmares started coming true and I began to figure out that they were saving me, warning me away from car accidents and store robberies and the Infected. Someone, somewhere out there was watching over me, veering me away from danger.” I paused to watch a group of people emerge from the dining room and head for the garden. “Before my dad died, I thought we found reasons in the things that happen. But now, I believe things happen for a reason.”

“You think there’s a reason we’re here now?” he asked, and I interpreted the underlying question he was truly asking.

“Yes, there’s an explanation for those people down there being here with us, looking to you for guidance,” I said, tipping my head to the people gathered outside the dining area. “Even though it is the one position you despise being in, there’s a reason. There’s a reason the Infected are attracted to you. There’s a reason for my nightmares.”

“I know what you’re doing,” he muttered.

“Convincing you that the right person is in the right place at the right time.”

He sighed and swiveled his head to gaze away only to snap it back. “I cannot be responsible for these people, Kennedy. These people believe that we can save them. More than that, that we can guide them through the dangers out there to some promised land. And there’s danger in letting them believe that. Sooner or later, they’re going to look around and find that no one is capable of it, that they may have been better off taking their chances defending their camps than risking their lives out here with us.”