Shades of Gray (9 page)

“I’m okay.”

He frowned and let go, but didn’t step away. I think the color had drained from my face, and he was afraid I’d pass out and go ass-over-teakettle, off the wall and into the hands of the little kid on the ground. I noticed in my periphery Michael and Mia heading my way, so I scolded myself mentally and grabbed the arrow from the quiver. I nocked it and found the tiny head in my sights.

In that instant, the child runner took on the appearance of my little cousin, Rayna. My heart thumped and sped up. Before I could run screaming, I closed my eyes, squeezed the release, teeth gritting so hard even Jonah heard it. He patted my shoulder, subtly dropping his arm once the other two were standing outside his platform.

“Let’s leave the arrows ‘til daylight, ladies,” Michael said after watching the little girl drop to the ground. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough for one night.”

I was visibly shaken, though I tried to pass it off as being tired. I looked over at him, making a point not to look down at the ground, and nodded.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I’m dragging ass here. Too early for this shit.”

Mia watched me closely when I bent to pick up my quiver. My hands and arms were trembling. I went about gathering my gear quickly enough that I hoped she hadn’t noticed. Jonah and Michael made a bit of small talk, mostly about the silence from the prison. I didn’t pay much attention though because there was only one thought that was racing through my mind:
get off this wall, get off this wall, get off this
wall.

I had to physically force myself to slow down; I was shuffling about, yanking the quiver onto my shoulder and grabbing my bow, shaking like a drug-addict going through withdrawal. It wouldn’t dawn on me until later that it had indeed been strange, not getting a response from Waters or any of the Guardsmen at the prison. Again, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

“Are we done here or what?” I finally asked, interrupting the men. Even my voice was rattled.

“Yeah, Kase, head on back. Get some rest. We’ll take care of this mess in the morning,” Michael replied with a dismissive wave.

I dipped my head and made myself scarce, brushing past Mia in my hurry to the stairs.

* * *

“This ain’t good,” Jake said to himself.

He’d been watching the others from the roof through a pair of binoculars, but Kasey was the one who’d drawn his attention. Ironically, the runners’ screams hadn’t been what had woken him up. It’d been the fight coming from Kasey’s room earlier. He had listened from the other side of his bedroom door. After hearing the girls leave, he’d gotten dressed and went up to the roof. He had known he wouldn’t be needed for this particular situation. After what had happened earlier, and the small things he’d been noticing from Kasey in previous weeks, Jake wanted to observe her, see how she’d react, and interact.

He’d gotten his answer.

Jake sat in one of the old lawn chairs they kept up top, bent low so he was barely visible from the ground. If Kasey knew he was spying on her, she’d rip him a new asshole. He watched her come down from the wall, watched as she walked down the gravel drive, and as she looked once over her shoulder before disappearing onto the porch. In Jake’s opinion, she looked very much like someone hiding something. A secret, a plan? Or a sickness perhaps. Jake didn’t like the thought of that.

He leaned against the back of the old chair with a sigh, dropping his binocular hand to his lap, and stared out over the expanse to the wall. Jonah and Abby had stayed to finish their shift, and Michael was walking Mia back to the house. Both of them were motioning in the direction of the prison as they talked, which forced Jake’s eyes reflexively to the right. He twisted in his seat, eyes narrowing as he noticed something the two on the ground couldn’t from their low vantage point: flashes of light, white and orange, dancing along the horizon.

“Well,” he muttered, slowly rising and raising the binoculars back to his eyes. “This ain’t good either.”

There was only one thing in that direction: the prison. Any light bright or large enough to be seen from the former country club was a bad sign considering there were a few ridges between the Winchester clan and Blueville Correctional’s soldiers. After watching for several minutes, Jake began to notice that the white flashes were quick and random, resembling muzzle flares from heavy arms fire. The orange flashes were more of a glow than a random burst, making Jake think of fire. He lowered the binoculars, looked back at the wall, then looked back to the horizon.

A group of runners, here. Gunshots and fire, there.

“Ah, hell.”

* * *

“I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.”

I paced back and forth in my room in the dark, my hands in my hair. Gus sat next to the desk, his head moving back and forth, watching me as I made laps. “Right, Gus? I’m not like Shannon, am I?”

I don’t want to end up like her.

“You already are,” Ben said. He was hovering in the corner next to the closet.

My hair was sticking out in odd directions, a result of being yanked here and there for the last twenty minutes. My forehead was damp with sweat; my eyes bloodshot. The shakes had left, so that was a plus. Unfortunately they’d been replaced by rapid breathing and overactive sweat glands. I’d stopped in the middle of the floor, looking down at Gus, trying to get my breathing under control, when I heard stomping in the hallway outside my door.

“What the hell’s going on now?” I whispered.

My hands fidgeted against my abdomen, my eyes darted around, and deep down I had the feeling I was having a paranoid episode of some kind. I suppose I could have stopped right then and there and ran to Nancy’s room, hoping she would dose me with enough drugs to knock out a horse. There was also the chance she would slam the door in my face. Or shove the barrel of her shotgun under my chin and save the household from an armed and crazy person.

“Do them all a favor and kill yourself now,” Ben whispered.

Stop it. Stop it. STOP IT!

The stomping went past my room and down the hall, fading almost to nothing before sounding again and tromping back to the stairs. I held my breath and froze, my eyes wide and staring into Ben’s dark corner, ears perked and listening for the cause of the noise. The size of the house quickly swallowed anything that was happening downstairs. Something was obviously in motion, but I was having a damn hard time getting a hold of myself to figure out what it could be. I squeezed my eyes shut, still holding my breath, and curled my hands into tight fists. I clenched them until my nails bit into my palms, hoping the pain would bring me around. My jaw tightened and my teeth gritted painfully together. I’m sure I looked like I was trying to take the world’s biggest shit, but it worked, and that’s all that mattered.

Reality slowly swam back, weaving and winding around the madness plaguing my mind, until it eventually drowned out the darkness. I let out a huge sigh, stars floating before my eyes. I took several more deep breaths, tipping my head back and rolling my shoulders. I shook it off, wiped the sweat from my forehead with my shirt sleeve, and rubbed my eyes.

“I’m alright,” I told Gus. “I’m alright.”

He came closer, ears down and tail tucked, stuck his nose in the palm of my hanging hand, and replied with a whine and a snort. I don’t think he believed me.

* * *

“I didn’t say I
heard
gunshots. I said somethin’ is goin’ on over there,” Jake repeated himself to Michael and John in the Head Room.

He had run off the roof and to his room to grab his rifle a short time before, then searched the downstairs looking for the two men, finally finding them next to the radio. Michael had been trying to raise someone over at the prison, still with no luck.

“I’d say we need to assume the worst. Shit might be hittin’ the fan over there. If it is, we need to be ready. That little group of deadheads you guys just took care of might be the beginning of something we don’t want anything to do with,” John said.

The big man was standing in front of the large window, peering through the drapes. Jake looked back and forth between John’s back and Michael, who was repeating his call over the radio.

“Winchester to Blueville, Winchester to Blueville, over.” He shook his head and held the mic close to his mouth, staring at Jake across the table. “They’re not gonna answer.”

“No shit, dumbass,” Jake said. “You’ve been tryin’ them for how long?”

“Alright, alright,” Michael replied, hanging the mic on its hook. “What do you want to do, John?”

The big man didn’t answer right away; he stood there at the window with his arms crossed, rubbing his chin. Everyone knew about Jake’s impatient streak, and John was pushing the younger man’s threshold. Just as Jake was preparing for an outburst, John turned to face the two.

“You saw lights, right? Looked like fire maybe? Did you hear anything?” John asked slowly.

Jake nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Like an orange glow, on the horizon. Some bright white flashes, but I’m not sayin’ for sure if those were gunshots cause I didn’t hear anythin’.”

John grunted, then turned his focus on Michael. “Wake everyone up. Get ‘em on the wall, locked and loaded. I don’t know what the hell is going on over there, but I don’t like the sounds of it. That’s what I’d do, Mike.”

“Okay. Get it done.”

* * *

I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair when someone started beating on my bathroom door. Gus barked once (he liked to sleep on the bathroom rug while I showered), then quickly quieted down and started thumping his tail against the floor.

“Goddamnit.” I finished rinsing before cracking the shower door open and shouting, “What?”

“It’s me, are ya decent?” Jake’s voice was muffled through the door.

“Hell no I’m not decent. I’m in the shower! What do you want?”

“We got a problem. I’m comin’ in.”

I shut the shower door and was glad it was the opaque kind. Jake stepped into the bathroom and I could hear him talking to Gus, then he must have sat down on the toilet because when he started talking again, it sounded like he was right next to the door.

“There’s some trouble over at the prison, so Michael wants everyone on the wall.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” I washed the rest of my body as fast as possible after hearing the word ‘trouble.’

“No, but there’s a light or somethin’ over the ridge. Looks like a fire. I don’t know for sure. It does seem a little coincidental if you ask me. After that group of deadheads you three had to take down? Sounds like a mess of shit comin’.”

I sighed and turned the water off.
Just what we need, more shit.
I don’t know why I was surprised. We were living through a zombie apocalypse after all. Life couldn’t be rainbows and butterflies all the time, or even part of the time. We had an evacuation plan in place in case we had to leave the club in a hurry, and we took all the necessary precautions to limit our exposure, staying hidden from the world. That group of runners tonight had shown us we weren’t truly hidden, and never would be. We’d had stray deadheads stumble across us during our time there, but those runners had been the largest group by far. Even so, something didn’t add up.

“Hey Jake?” I cracked the door open and grabbed the towel off the hook, then pulled the door shut again. “Say there is trouble over at the prison. A swarm found them, or whatever. Hell’s bells, they make enough noise. I’m surprised they aren’t under siege all the time.” I dried off as I talked, thinking more clearly than I had in a long time. “How the hell would those zombies find their way here? We’ve been quiet, as far as I know. Not attracting any attention. And it’s not like it’s a straight shot, to here from the prison.”

“I know, I know. Sounds like overreactin’. I know.”

Jake stood and walked across the bathroom, turning the water on in the sink. I had finished drying off and was waiting on him to leave so I could get out. Since that didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, I cracked the door again and stuck my face out. Jake was splashing water on his face.

“You wanna wrap this up tonight?” I asked.

“What is it you always say about overreactin’?” He rubbed the towel over his scruffy chin and tossed it onto the sink.

“I’d rather overreact than take a trip up shit creek?”

“Exactly.”

“Get the hell out of here so I can get dressed. I’ll see you on the wall.”

He grinned on his way out, taking Gus with him.

November 19th: just before noon

We sat on the wall for six hours, and that “mess of shit” never came.

By we, I mean all of us able to use a rifle except for the three kids, and by mess of shit, I mean deadheads. It was a colossal waste of time; we’d used up half a day that should have been spent sending the next scheduled group out for recovery, and possibly sending a scout or two over the ridge to spy on the prison, gather some intel. I kept my mouth shut. Thankfully everyone else was keeping their mouths shut too; Michael was doing enough cussing and raising hell for the lot of us. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to be disappointed in this case. No deadheads equal a good day. Having ourselves all wound up and bent out of shape expecting an attack that didn’t come, well those are all perfect ingredients for an explosion.