The Becoming: Ground Zero (25 page)

“Maybe,” Gray said doubtfully, obviously not thrilled at the idea of the two off together, presumably alone. Brandt wasn’t comfortable with the idea either; while Ethan and Remy were damn good at handling a small group of infected, their survival instincts seemed to be mostly absent. But Brandt also suspected Gray’s reasons ran deeper than a simple worry for their safety.

“I’ll go find them,” Brandt offered. He gently nudged Cade awake and, after she sat up and pushed her hair out of her face, grabbed his gun and climbed down from the truck.

The early-morning air had a chilly bite to it, and Brandt shivered, rubbing his hand over his bare arm vigorously. He wondered what possessed him to leave his jacket in the back of the truck. Cars lined the highway, bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see. Many more were jammed at odd angles along the sides of the road, shoved there by desperate drivers looking to escape the state by any means possible. It was a veritable sea of vehicles. Brandt wondered how many infected were trapped in their cars when the virus took hold of their bodies. The makeshift car lot was a potential minefield of infection.

Brandt contemplated the different directions his two companions could have gone and discarded each of them just as quickly. Ethan and Remy were too smart to venture into the traffic jam with just each other for protection, and Brandt doubted Ethan would go anywhere near the van. He glanced around again, checking out the cars and trucks in their immediate vicinity, and decided to start at the front of the truck. He figured the cab was the best place to begin.

As Brandt approached the cab, he paused in mid-step as he noticed the doors and windows were firmly shut. That in itself wasn’t necessarily odd. The strange way the windows were fogged was, though. Brandt frowned, looking toward one of the cars parked nearby. Its windows were crystal clear. His eyebrows darted up as his mind leaped to the most obvious possibility. No, that couldn’t have been it. Could it?

As Brandt stared at the fogged windows, trying to decide on the best course of action, footsteps approached behind him. Brandt turned in time to see Gray walking toward the cab of the truck. A frown graced the younger man’s face, his forehead wrinkled in consternation.

“Have you found them yet?” Gray asked. His eyes flitted to the windows at which Brandt had been staring.

“I … uh, maybe?” Brandt hazarded. He had a feeling that Gray suspected the same thing he did, and he knew Gray wouldn’t like
that
possibility one bit. Gray’s face screwed up into an ugly grimace, and he stormed forward, pushing Brandt aside hard enough to make the taller man stumble. “Gray, I’m not sure you should do that,” Brandt hurried to say as Gray’s hand landed on the door handle.

“Shut the fuck up, Brandt,” Gray snarled. Brandt rolled his eyes and took a step back, holding up his hands as if to say,
Don’t say I didn’t warn you
. Gray wrenched the truck’s door open, exposing the inside of the cab to the cool morning air and their prying eyes.

The scene inside the cab was, thankfully, a lot more innocent than Brandt had imagined. Ethan and Remy lay on the bench seat, and they’d apparently been asleep, if their tousled hair and bleary eyes were any indication. Ethan’s arms were still around Remy as she sat up straight. She snatched a gun off the dashboard and pointed it at both of them. The embrace in which Ethan held Remy likely meant nothing—the bench seat was only so wide, after all—but Brandt had a feeling Gray wouldn’t see it that way.

And, as usual, Brandt was right.

“What the
fuck?
” Gray snapped. He glared at the scene in the truck, disregarding the weapon in Remy’s hand. Brandt fought not to back away and let the situation handle itself. Knowing all parties involved, he knew it would be better to stick close in case blood was spilled.

Remy shifted her gun to point it right at Gray’s head, her arm straight and extended; it didn’t waver a fraction as she glared at Gray with cold brown eyes. “Give me one good fucking reason I shouldn’t pull the damned trigger,” she snarled. Brandt blinked and raised an eyebrow. Gray, for his part, was completely unfazed by Remy’s threat. He stepped forward and shoved her arm to the side, pressing it firmly into the back of the cab’s bench seat.

“What the fuck is going on in here?”

“Why the fuck is it any of your business what’s going on in here?” Ethan bit out, speaking up for the first time.

Brandt drew in a slow breath and took an involuntary step back without realizing he’d done it. His instincts screamed that this fight would be uglier than usual, and therefore more likely to draw the attention of any infected in the vicinity. Brandt could almost see the fabled green-eyed monster on Gray’s shoulders, gearing up to pounce on Ethan with all the force in his skinny asthmatic body.

“Who the fuck asked you?” Gray shot back. He grabbed Remy’s arm and pulled on it, nearly dragging the young woman bodily from the cab to the cracked pavement. Remy barely managed to keep her feet, stumbling awkwardly as she landed hard on her weak ankle.

“Guys, I don’t think now is the time
or
the place to start a fight,” Brandt tried. He glanced toward the back of the truck and wondered if he should get Cade. He was sure she could shut the fight down with a wave of her rifle.

“It’s not any of your damned business what’s going on in here, Gray,” Ethan said. He scrambled out of the truck and dropped down to stand defensively beside Remy. He put a supportive hand on her forearm to steady her as he glared at the younger man.

Brandt debated easing around the three and getting any firearms out of the immediate vicinity before one of the men tried to kill the other. But as Brandt pondered his options, Ethan and Gray began to shout at each other, their words running together until Brandt couldn’t tell who said what or what was even being said. Then Gray’s fist swung out toward Ethan’s head, and Ethan retaliated, gripping the other man’s jacket and swinging him against the side of the truck. Gray struck the truck with a loud thud and rebounded, and they lunged at each other simultaneously. In the process, Remy was shoved to the ground, and she let out an indignant shriek as her body met the pavement.

“Oh hell, not right now,” Brandt groaned in exasperation. The temptation to step back and just watch was overwhelming, but instead, Brandt helped Remy off the pavement. “You okay?” he called into her ear over the shouting and grunting from the other two men.

“Yes, but there’s two bastards whose asses I’m seriously about to kick,” Remy snarled, dusting her clothes off. When Brandt caught a glimpse of her face, he firmly believed she could easily carry through with her threat.

It was at that point that Cade rounded the truck and stepped into the fray, a look of absolute fury on her face. She stormed into the midst of the fight with no regard for her own safety and grabbed Gray by the back of his shirt. She physically hauled him out of the fight and away from Ethan, slinging the younger man into the middle of the road. “What in the nine circles of
Hell
is going on out here?” Cade asked. She spat the words out, nearly hissing them, but she never once raised her voice. She didn’t need to; her ominous tone was enough to make Brandt cringe inside. Ethan attempted to push past Cade and swing at Gray again, but Cade grabbed Ethan’s jacket and shoved him back against the truck before she slammed her fist firmly into the side of his neck, hard enough to hurt but not so hard as to maim. Ethan dropped to a knee, gasping for breath, and she loomed over him. “Are you two
trying
to bring the fucking infected down on us? You’re making enough noise that I’m pretty sure they can hear you in fucking Louisiana!”

Ethan glared at Cade, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He braced a hand against the truck, his other hand clasped tightly to his neck, and slowly rose to his feet. Brandt didn’t like the look Ethan gave Cade, and he moved up to stand behind her, offering her his silent support and backup, though he was sure she didn’t actually need it.

“Keep that fucker away from me,” Ethan said, his voice hoarse from the neck punch Cade had given him. He jabbed his finger at Gray to emphasize his point before brushing past everyone and heading to the back of the truck.

The four who remained exchanged uncertain glances in silence. Gray finally shook his head and walked away, his fists clenched as he turned his back on all of them. He climbed onto the barrier between the highway lanes and sat on top of it, facing away from the truck. Cade looked to Remy, and then her icy blue eyes landed on Brandt.

“What in the flying pygmy fuck was that all about?” Cade asked Brandt. He raised his eyebrows at the colorful swearing.

“Ethan. Gray. Remy,” Brandt said simply, nodding in Remy’s direction. The young woman gave him a disgusted look in return, obviously still smarting from the rough shove to the ground, and then turned on her heel and walked briskly to the back of the truck, her back ramrod straight and her shoulders squared.

“Wait, scratch that. I don’t want to know any grisly details,” Cade said, putting a hand up to stop Brandt before he could elaborate further. She let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t really have time to hear it anyway. We need to get moving.” Cade glanced around them, and her hand dropped to the gun she wore at her hip. “I’m not comfortable staying here any longer.
Especially
not after all that noise.”

“I agree,” Brandt said with a short nod. He motioned to the back of the truck, gesturing for the woman to walk ahead of him. “We should all get some food in our stomachs, pack up our shit, and head on.”

“Where exactly are we heading on to?” Cade asked as they both reached the back of the truck.

“Luckie Street,” Brandt announced. The others looked up at Brandt questioningly. Avi climbed out of the truck and ran to get Gray. Brandt released the latch on the tailgate and sat down on it, starting to dig through a bag of food they’d managed to salvage from the van.

“Luckie Street?” Theo repeated once Avi returned, Gray following a few steps behind her. The man appeared to be the very definition of cranky. He climbed into the back of the truck and dropped down beside his brother, shooting Ethan an ugly look over his brother’s head. “What’s on Luckie Street?” Theo asked.

Brandt cracked open a can of soda and took a long swallow of the hot, bubbly liquid. He was honestly enjoying leaving his companions in suspense as he drank from the can, but the dirty looks he got from Remy, Ethan, and Gray—none of whom was in the mood to be jerked around, it seemed—made Brandt rethink his methods of finding amusement.

“The Tabernacle,” Brandt answered. He set the can on the tailgate beside him. “More specifically, the Tabernacle as it was commandeered during the initial Michaluk outbreak. It was turned into a base of operations. It used to be a church but was converted into a concert venue. It was perfect for a base, because the windows were already covered for performances, and there are bars on the outsides of the windows too. Most of the entry points are difficult to get through because of fences and steep stairs.”

“Okay, so how does an old church help us any?” Ethan asked, his voice heavy with irritation. It took everything in Brandt’s considerable willpower to resist reaching over and hitting the man across the back of the head.

“Because not only did the military install backup generators in the Tabernacle to run the base’s equipment in the event of total power failure, but it also has a radio linked directly to the fucking higher-ups in the United States military—or what’s left of them, anyway—and they could send in a helicopter to pick us the fuck up.”

“And what makes you think they would be willing to risk the lives of some of their few remaining military guys to rescue seven random people?” Gray snapped. “We’re nobody important enough for a rescue crew.”

Brandt picked up his drink once more, taking a deep swallow of the warm Coke before he answered. “Just trust me. Once I tell them who I am, they will definitely be coming in after us.”

A silence fell over the group as Brandt finished off the drink and tossed the can out of the truck. The other six exchanged looks, Cade’s and Ethan’s puzzled, Gray’s and Theo’s confused, and Avi’s a mixture of relief and triumph. Remy simply looked blankly at him, unblinking, and Brandt found the lack of expression in her dark eyes a bit disturbing.

Finally, Avi spoke up, the look in her blue eyes calculating as she glanced up at Brandt. “What about what I need to do?” she asked. “I still need to go to the CDC.”

“No, you don’t,” Ethan said immediately. Brandt was secretly relieved to see the older man begin to take charge again. Ethan faced off with Avi and gave her a hard look. “You’re not going anywhere, and neither are we. We’ve already lost a member of our group because of your bullshit. We’re not going any farther than Luckie Street.”

“But what about my report?” Avi asked. Despite the desperation in her voice, Brandt could see a flicker of eagerness in her expression, one that likely passed unnoticed by most of the members of the group. The disconnect between her words and her expression was strange, and Brandt tilted his head slightly as he tried to figure out what about it bothered him.

“What
about
your report?” Ethan shot back, obviously not seeing the look in Avi’s eyes. “Your
report
is the least of our worries. I’m focused on getting what’s left of us out of this mess alive. You can deal with that shit on your own damned time.” Ethan turned his gaze to Brandt and said, “We’re in your territory now. What do you propose we do?”