The King of Clayfield - 01 (28 page)

"Have you been out since then?" I asked.

"I went over to check on some of the neighbors, but nobody answered the door. I thought about driving north--trying to find Katie--but I wanted to wait until things died down some. But now...."

"Things aren't dying down," Jen said. "It's as bad out there now as it was on Thursday."

"What have y'all seen?"

"It hasn't changed from last week," I said. "Except maybe there are more infected people now."

He stared at the smoke coming off the end of his cigarette.

"I'm a mess," he said. "This whole thing with Wendy and Katie--I'm messed up over it."

"We can understand that," Jen said.

"But I'll help y'all any way I can. I don't know if I'll be any good to you."

"We all lost somebody," I said. "We're all messed up.”

Charlie offered to help us collect supplies and we accepted. We told him we'd be back when the rain stopped, thanked him for his hospitality, and then we left. The five gallons of gas he'd given us brought us to just under half of a tank.

"What do you think?" I said as we pulled away from Charlie's house. "Should we invite him to come in with us?"

"He seems to be okay there," Jen said. "We know where he is if we need him."

"Don't you
 
like him?"

"Honestly," Jen said, "it's the cigarettes. He just chained smoked the whole time. It would be okay if he'd go outside, but I don't want to make him do something like that. We can live however we want now, and I don't want to live with someone that smokes."

"I thought he was nice," said Sara. "Maybe he would smoke outside if we
 
asked him to."

"He would be helpful," I said. "And he
 
did
 
seem
 
really nice."

"I don't doubt that," Jen said. "He seemed like a really sweet guy, but I just can't do it. The smoke from the stove has me stuffed up enough. I'm not going to live with it if I don't have to. Besides, I'm liable to have a weak moment and start up again. That's the last thing I need."

"What if he asks to join us? We can't just turn him away."

"Then we need to lay down some rules," Jen said.

We found the perfect house on Fister Lane. It was
 
a huge, two story
 
brick house with a three-bay garage
 
set well off the road with a long, paved
 
driveway that circled up to the house giving it
 
access to the road in two places. It had two chimneys--one on the end and one in the middle of the house--which is something you just don't see anymore on newer houses. The property was open.
 
There was a
 
small lake behind the house with a dock. There were also rows of trees to the side of the house.
 
I wouldn't know until they leafed out, but it was likely that it was a little orchard. Plus, there was a new, black
 
Cadillac Escalade parked out front.

I didn't think the house nor the property was especially pretty, but who cared about
 
aesthetics when the place was built like a fortress?

Another thing that got my attention was that it had a little
 
building behind the house. It looked like it might be a guest or pool house.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Jen said. "Pull in, and let's check it out."

I felt kind of bad hoping the house would be unoccupied, because that would
 
mean the owners would have
 
likely been sick or dead.

We pulled up close to the front door.
 
We all pulled our masks up. I got the shotgun and knocked on the door while Jen and Sara went around looking in windows. When no one answered the door, I walked around the other side of the house and tried to lift the garage doors, but they wouldn't come up. I continued around and met Jen and Sara on the back patio. There was an in-ground pool. The
 
building in the back turned out to be a guesthouse.

I tried the patio door on the main house, and it slid open. Jen grinned at me and went inside. It was
 
a nice house
 
like Brian Davies' home, but much less tastefully decorated. We didn't care. Jen wanted comfort, and this place promised that, so long as those chimneys were functional.

We were standing in the kitchen. From there, we could see the great room and dining room. Sitting next to the dining table was a suitcase and a garment bag. On the table was a small lockbox and car keys.

"What's that smell?" Sara said.

"Yeah," I said. "I smell it, too. We need to stay close to
 
each other. Jen, give Sara that revolver."

Jen pulled the weapon from her waistband and handed it to Sara. With the three of us armed we began our sweep of the house.

On the ground floor we found two bedrooms suites, a laundry/mud room, a living room, kitchen, great room, a half bath,
 
and dining room. I opened the door to the garage. There was
 
a tan
 
Honda Civic in one of the bays, but that was the only vehicle.

Upstairs, we went down the hall looking in rooms. We found two more bedrooms and a full bath.
 
The last door was another bedroom. The smell hit us hard, and I thought Sara was going to puke. There was a fireplace on the far wall, and the bed was to our left.
 
On the bed was an infected man. His hands were tied together and tied again to the headboard. He was lying there in his own excrement. His wrists were raw. His left ankle was opened up and scabbed over; it looked like it had been eaten. There was
 
a dead cat in there, too. I don't know how it had died--either from thirst or from eating on the infected man.

The man hissed at us.

"My God, what is this?" Jen said.

"They must have restrained him the way I did with Brian," I said. "Then I guess they left him after he turned. Maybe they were infected, too."

Jen grabbed the knob and shut the door. We all stood in the hallway. We could hear the man making noises inside.

"Looks like we have a room to clear out," Jen said.

"This place is nice," I said, "But we can keep looking."

"It's just the one room," Jen said.

"Yeah," I said, "but we'll have to get him out
 
then
 
carry out that filthy mattress."

"We'll just shoot him then dump
 
the body
 
out the window," Jen said.

"That mattress isn't going to fit out the window."

It briefly hit me what an odd conversation that was. Exactly one week before, I would have never dreamed I'd have a conversation like that.

"What do you think, Sara?"
 
I said.

"It's really gross."

Jen rolled her eyes, "Well, there you go. It's not just gross; it's
really
gross. Thank you so much for your input, dear."

"Why do you have to be so mean?" Sara said and walked down the hall to the stairs.

We both watched her leave.

"Yeah," I said. "Why do you?"

"It was just a joke," she said.

"It was uncalled for," I said. "And it's not the first time you've done it to her."

Jen walked down the hall and went into one of the other bedrooms. I followed her. She was standing at a dresser looking through drawers.

"What are you doing?" I said.

She slammed a drawer shut and sat on the bed.

"Well it turns out that we're not the last man and woman on Earth," she said.

"No, but that's good, isn't it?" I said, not really sure what she meant.

"Yeah, it's good," she said.
 

"You don't sound like you mean it."

I
 
heard the front door, so I went over to the window. Sara
 
was outside.

"We've been spending day and night together for...what? Five or six
 
days? You haven't tried anything."

"Tried anything?" I
 
said, turning around.

"I've never been with a man this long without them trying to get in my pants. Do you not think of me like that?"

"What? Jen, look what we've been through. I mean, there's a damn monster tied to the bed in
 
the next room
 
sitting in his own shit."

"I need to know where we stand," she said. "I think we need to be on the same page. I wanted to stay here, and
 
then you and Sara want to do something else. You and her have been agreeing a lot lately."

"What are you talking about?"

"Listen, I don't like what life has handed us here. This is some messed up shit, but we can still try to be happy, can't we?"

"Sure."

She stood and went over to the window.

"I thought we were getting along. I thought that maybe I had a decent shot at a life, such as it is, with a decent man. Finally, after all the deadbeats and jerks, I found somebody that treated me like a person. Then along comes the
 
young chick with the hot ass, and suddenly I don't exist anymore."

"Jen, I haven't--"

"No, but you want to.
 
Look at her out there. She's so damned adorable that I might just make a pass at her myself."

I
 
didn't know what to say.

She turned to face me.

"As bad as things are now," she
 
continued, tears coming to her eyes, "they were worse for me before. Things are scary now, but they were before, too.
 
Zach was dealing meth on the side. His friends scared me. The cops scared me. Hell, Zach scared me. The sad thing is he was the best boyfriend I'd had in years. At least he had a job and
 
a little money, you know? What an asshole.

"Then everything happened, and there you were. You even went back
 
inside my house
 
just to get me some shoes. Zach would have never done that for me.
 

"I hated my job. I had debt that I'd never be able to pay off. Then all that went away, and it was just me and you. I felt like somebody really cared about me for once."

"I do care about you," I said, "but we've been kind of busy trying to stay alive. Anyway, I know we've been together for the past few days, but we barely know each other."

She stood up, grabbed my hand, and shook it.

"Hi. My
 
name is Jen. Pleased to meet you. Have you met Sara? She's the one
 
outside with the
 
boobs that you keep
 
staring at. Or maybe you'd like to meet my friend Brian; maybe
 
he's what you're looking for?"

"Why are you pressuring me like this?" I said.

"Sheez," she said, pushing past me to the hallway, "Grow a pair, would ya?"

I propped my shotgun against the wall and stepped out after her. I
 
grabbed her arm and spun her around.

"Let me go," she said.

I pulled her in, pulled
 
our masks down
 
and kissed her.
 

Wow.

It
 
was short-lived. She
 
shoved me away.

"I don't want your damn charity," she said and started toward the stairs.

I grabbed her again and pushed her against the wall.
 
She struggled a little, but I wouldn't let her get away.

I kissed her again, and she melted against me.

CHAPTER 29

We heard the front door open again. Jen
 
pushed me away a little. She
 
pulled
 
her mask back up over her nose and mouth. She
 
tenderly touched my cheek then pulled my mask up, too.

"Don't forget your gun," she whispered. Then she went to the stairs, leaving me staring after her. She looked back at me, her eyes smiling.

I went back for my shotgun.