Suspending Reality (24 page)

Chapter 14

We’d been on the highway for at least half an hour, listening to the rhythmic sound of our tires on the asphalt, when a strange noise made me look up. I held my breath and listened. For a whole second, nothing stirred, but then a thudding sound reverberated from inside the Jeep, the strange thudding and thumping we’d heard before. “What the heck?” I mumbled, motioning Nick to pull over and cut the engine. “I think something
is
in here with us.”

“I hear it too. Stay calm,” Nick said. “Let’s not confront
anything
until we’re all safely out of the Jeep. That’ll give us a huge advantage.”

The moment the Jeep ground to a halt, I grabbed Val and jumped out, setting her softly on the grass. If something was in that Jeep with us, I didn’t want her to get hurt, especially while she was out cold and couldn’t defend herself. I dashed for the back of the vehicle, with my weapon drawn.

Nick reached me in two long strides and placed his large body on the other side of the rear hatch.

Signaling him to keep quiet, I pointed my gun at the storage compartment located behind the second set of seats, and mentally prepared myself to shoot the miserable stowaway between its dead white eyes. I had no idea how a zombie could’ve gotten in there, but I was going to make it pay. With my eyes glued to the rear hatch, I inched closer and reached to open it.

Suddenly tires screeched on the asphalt behind us, and the doors opened and slammed shut.

“Get back inside!” Nick yelled. “There’s nothing to see.”

“What’s going on?” Jackie asked, ignoring him. “You just stopped in the middle of nowhere.”

“Is it Val?” Claire asked, appearing beside me.

I pushed her a step back and peered at Nick’s face, which resembled a mask of irritation. “We all have to be quiet,” I whispered, “or you might just wake up the monster—and I’m not talking about the zombie in the storage compartment of the Jeep.”

As though in answer, a
thud
echoed from inside, followed by a louder one.

Claire jumped back, startled. “What the heck? A zombie? How did it get in there?”

“Probably while Val was on her little moonlight shopping spree.” I shrugged. “As to why it would have wanted to crawl in there, don’t ask me. I guess they’re not claustrophobic or prone to motion sickness.”

“Okay, we’re opening,” Nick said, pointing at Jackie. “Can you stand guard?”

She nodded, pulling out her gun.

“Okay.” Nick sighed heavily, then unlocked the rear hatch and slowly opened the compartment door.

I drew a sharp breath and held it, bracing myself for the worst.

Something stirred inside, as though whatever was in there had sat up groggily and tried to maneuver themselves out. Then a voice echoed from within.

I blinked several times before a face came to mind to match the voice.

“Please don’t shoot, Nick! Don’t shoot, man!” Tahoe pleaded, appearing in my line of vision. His face was covered in darkness, but I would have recognized his hands anywhere, for they were the hands that had almost cost Val her life.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Nick stepping closer, his jaw clenched in anger. “Nice touch remembering my name, Lake Tahoe, but do you think that’s gonna actually save your sorry butt? The tables have turned for you, buddy. Now I’m in charge.”

I shined the flashlight in Tahoe’s eyes, unable to believe the guy’s luck. He’d ventured out into the night, and when we’d watched his friend being eaten alive, we’d all mistakenly assumed Tahoe had been a side dish. I couldn’t believe he was still alive, let alone standing in front of us. Either he had to be the luckiest moron in the whole wide world, or else he’d been bitten, so the venom had kept his future kind at bay. I knew which option was more likely. Taking a step back, I pushed Claire behind me, just in case, and focused my attention back on Tahoe. His hands and clothes were bloody, but whether the brown and red stains were from his blood or someone else’s, I couldn’t tell. If he had been attacked and infected by zombies, I knew Nick wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him; at least that would have given Nick the perfect excuse to put a bullet in his head, a fitting death sentence for his attempted murder of our sister.

“You’re the scum of the Earth. You know that, right?” Nick pointed his gun directly at the scraggly man’s head. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull this trigger.”

Tahoe held up his hands, his eyes wide with fear. “Please don’t shoot! It was all Earl! I let Dean go so he could help her. Just ask him. I let go!” He pointed at me, his gaze begging me to tell my brother my part of the story.

I’m not gonna play along with his little games.

My brother glanced over at me as if to acknowledge his claims.

“What?” I asked Tahoe. “You want me to remember? Hmm. Well, I’m afraid that might not work right now since I have a little concussion leftover from trying to save my sister from you and your sleaze-ball friend.”

Tahoe paled, and a sheen of sweat covered his forehead. His hands clenched and unclenched, and his gaze fixed on the gun in my brother’s hand.

“Is that so?” Nick said, grinning.

I inclined my head and tried to keep hard from laughing at Tahoe’s shocked expression. “Yeah. Look, Nick, you might hafta draw your own conclusion here since I ain’t gonna be of much help.”

Tahoe swallowed audibly.

I couldn’t help but feel justice had been served by terrifying him, if only a tiny bit. “Okay. He did let me go, technically,” I said eventually. “Thing is, I still couldn’t reach Val in time, and if it weren’t for him and his half-wit friend, she wouldn’t have gone through the horror she experienced.”

Nick nodded. “Right. An accessory. I think any judge and jury would condemn a man who tried to assist in the murder of an innocent woman.” He pointed the gun into Tahoe’s forehead.

“Hey! You’re not the judge and executioner,” Jackie said, grabbing Nick’s arm.

Even though I’d sworn it when Val had supposedly died, I didn’t believe in cold-blooded murder. Those vengeful thoughts had been nothing more than the result of my emotions spilling over when I thought my sister had been murdered. “Just let him go,” I said with a heavy sigh. “He’s not worth a wasted bullet. Besides, we need to get back on the road.”

“Get out of the trunk, Tahoe!” Nick said through gritted teeth. “Make one wrong move, and I’ll shoot you dead in your tracks.”

Tahoe slowly climbed out. “I’ll just be on my way. Thank you.”

“Everybody get back to your vehicles,” Nick said, motioning Claire and Jackie back to their Jeep.

“Nick…” I said, hesitating. Knowing my brother, I doubted he’d just let Tahoe be on his merry way, but Nick was hard to read. He’d always been like that, but he was no killer.
Or is he?
“Nick?” My hand wandered to grab his arm, but he shrugged it off.

Jackie picked up on his vibes too. “You can’t kill him, Nick. We’re not murderers!”

Tahoe coughed and fell to the ground. He’d lost a lot of blood and was pretty weak.

“Nick,” Claire said, “you’re not a killer. You know that.”

He regarded her coolly. “How would you know? You’ve known me for all of five minutes.”

She pressed her fist against her chest, right above where her heart was beating. “I can feel it.” Her voice quivered with emotion. “Let’s help him get better, and then you can kick him out.”

Laughing, Nick shook his head. “Why shouldn’t we just leave him here? He’d make a nice little buffet for any zombies who happen to come along.”

“You can’t just leave him out here to die,” she said, her gaze imploring him to listen, “and you can’t kill him either.”

We were trying our best, but in the end, we knew it was Nick’s decision to make. We hoped he would do the right thing.
But do I really know him?
I wondered. What I’d seen of him during our brief stint in Zombie Land had changed my perception of him. He was tougher and colder than I ever imagined he could be.

“They won’t touch him if they recognize their kind,” Nick said, regarding Tahoe.

“They didn’t bite me,” Tahoe insisted. “Really, they didn’t!” 

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “But wouldn’t that be sweet justice?”

“I’m with you on that one,” Jackie said. “He had no qualms about helping to throw an innocent woman over the railing as a distraction to save his own butt.”

“I would never hurt anybody!” Tahoe said, shaking his head vehemently. “It was all Earl! I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. If I didn’t help him and do what he said, he would have killed me too!”

“Not a loss,” Claire whispered. “The girl lived.”

He gasped. “What? How? I-I mean that’s wonderful, but how? Where is she? I’d like to personally apologize.”

“Let’s bandage him up,” Jackie said. “Give him some food and water and a weapon. Whatever happens after that is his problem.”

“You want to waste our precious supplies on this loser?” Nick asked.

Jackie stepped toward him, her eyes sparkling with determination. “Yes. I don’t want to have his demise on our conscience. That’s the only thing that makes us any more human than those things out there, isn’t it?”

Nick waved his gun in the air. “This jerk almost cost my sister her life!”

“Listen, Nick…”

“No, Claire! If he and his friend hadn’t stopped us, we could’ve made it out in the nick of time, before the herd came around to the front of the house.”

Claire shook her head vehemently. “That’s not entirely true, and you know it. I slowed you down in the first place. If you hadn’t stayed there long enough to convince us to come with you, you would’ve been long gone.”

“That’s different.”

A dangerous glint appeared in her eyes. “Why?”

Nick ran a hand through his hair as he contemplated her answer. “Because you didn’t
try
to kill my sister,” he said after a moment.

Claire’s shoulders slumped. She was losing the argument, right or wrong, and she knew it. Whether we wanted it or not, Nick would make the final decision.

“Claire, Jackie, you can’t just leave me here,” Tahoe pleaded. “Zombies will shred me to pieces. Earl’s a psychopath and told me he’d kill me countless times. I believed him after I saw the things he’s done in the past. But he was my uncle and I couldn’t leave him.”

“Oh, you’re good,” Nick said. “Go on, storyteller. Humor us.”

“No, really! It’s all true. My father’s the chief of police and I was going to tell him all about Earl.”

“Right,” I said.

“I swear I’m telling you the truth. Earl and I left the city we resided in to go pick up family members stranded in another state. We got sidetracked trying to lose a herd. I planned on getting back home, zombie apocalypse or not.”

He was good at making up stories, but none of us believed Tahoe for a second.

“Do you really have the heart to kill a cop’s son?” he said. “Not to mention, I have a wife and twin girls. Please think of them before you do anything to me.”

“If I was you,” Nick said, “I might’ve tried telling the story with one kid. It’s way more believable than twins.”

“Please think of my girls,” Tahoe added. “They have beautiful blonde hair like their mama. If you met my babies, you’d instantly fall in love with them.”

I raised my brows at him when he tried to play the sympathy card. I was sure no one in our group could possibly fall for such a tall tale, yet I could tell Jackie was softening: Her frown and the angry crease in her forehead disappeared, and her hands clutched into fists at her side as she turned to regard Nick. “We need to get going.” I said. “Having an argument out here is bound to draw attention—and not the positive kind.”

Nick nodded and took another step toward Tahoe, but Claire jumped in front of him as if to block Nick from shooting him. “He has nobody to look out for him!” she said. “You know what would’ve happened if no one had helped me in my time of need? I’d be dead.”

Nick let out a long breath. “Fine. Get the medical kit, Dean.”

I sighed.
Is he seriously caving just because of a pretty face?
Then again, I didn’t care. I just wanted to do whatever we were doing so we could get the heck outta there. When I grabbed the first aid kit, Claire snatched it out of my hand and began tending to Tahoe’s wounds.

“Hurry up. We don’t have time for this,” Nick said. “Every minute we stick around here just makes a bigger target on our backs.”

“Then help us get him into the Jeep so we can leave,” Claire snapped.

“No,” I said. “Nick’s right. Tahoe can’t come with us. He’s a liar and nothing but trouble. Tend to his wounds like you wanted, and we’ll give him a little food and water and some kind of weapon to defend himself, but that’s all we’re going to do for him.”

“Check him for any scratches or bites,” Jackie said.

Tahoe wiped a sleeve across his eyes. “I wasn’t bitten. Earl stabbed me. The zombies were on my butt, and I saw the rear hatch wide open from where you were packing supplies. I threw out the stuff in my way and I squeezed into the compartment, then shut the door. If I would’ve climbed into the back seat, they would’ve seen me. My idea worked. The dummies had no idea where I went.”