Thicker than Blood (46 page)

• • •

Leisel laid Alex’s canvas jacket on top of the mound
of dirt covering him and shakily got to her feet. Clasping her
hands together, she pressed them against her belly and stared
solemnly at the makeshift grave we’d dug. She still hadn’t
cried.

Together we’d dragged Alex’s body from the
motel room, a painstaking and miserable task as he was nearly two
hundred pounds of foul-smelling dead weight. Then, with only the
use of rocks and our blades, and after several backbreaking hours
under the sweltering sun, we’d barely managed to dig more than two
feet into the earth before realizing it was the best we could
do.

Tired and hungry, we’d rolled him into the
ground, using our bare hands to cover him with the grass and dirt
we’d freed. It wasn’t deep enough, not secure enough a grave to
keep the animals from getting to him, but at least it was
something.

“Should we say something?” I asked quietly.
“Like a prayer?”

In Fredericksville, we’d burned our dead. The
entire town would gather while Lawrence presided over the service,
always saying something kind about the deceased, someone he’d
usually barely known. He’d invite others to talk afterward,
allowing those who’d known the deceased a moment to reminisce. Yet,
it had always felt like some kind of sideshow to me, no real
feeling behind it, merely another way for Lawrence to further
solidify his place as our leader.

“No,” Leisel whispered, her eyes still
downcast. “There’s nothing to say.” She glanced up at me. “But we
could sing. He liked music, remember? He missed it.”

“What kind of music did he like?”

Leisel shook her head. “I don’t know, I never
asked.” A sob erupted in her throat and she clapped a hand over her
mouth, choking it back. “How awful is that?” she whispered, her
eyes wide. “I don’t even know because I never asked.”

Bending down, I placed my hand on top of the
dirt and whispered a quick thank-you before rising and going to
stand beside Leisel. Looping my arm through hers, I cuddled her
close to me. “I don’t think it matters, Lei. He’ll like anything
you sing.”

Her bottom lip disappeared beneath her teeth,
turning white from the pressure. After a moment she started
humming, a familiar tune that made my eyes grow wet.

Clutching her tighter, I hummed along with
her; softly at first, until Leisel began singing. And then together
we stood there, belting out the lyrics to “The Ballad of Lucy
Jordan.” It had been her mother’s favorite song, a song the woman
had played over and over again on her old record player, a glass of
gin always in her hand.

It hit me then, I could feel it deep down,
the painful realization that this wasn’t just Leisel saying
good-bye to Alex. This was Leisel saying good-bye to everyone she
loved, to everything she’d ever known.

And somehow, knowing that, it made everything
seem that much worse.

Leisel

“We could go back to the cabin,” I suggested,
pulling another slice of peach free from the mason jar. I swallowed
it whole, wiping the residual sticky liquid off on my dirty pants
before passing the jar to Evelyn.

Seated beside me on the back of the Jeep,
Evelyn pulled her own slice free, popped it into her mouth, and
began to chew. “At least he was good for something,” she muttered,
staring down at the canned fruit. Whoever he’d been, that awful man
who’d killed Alex, had at least made good on his word to provide us
with supplies. There was fuel, weapons—guns and bullets—clothing,
and enough food and water to last us for at least a few weeks.

“Eve,” I said, turning to face her. “Who was
he? Was he who hurt you?”

She stopped chewing, and still staring down
at the peaches, shrugged her shoulders. “Does it matter?”

I didn’t respond. She was right; it didn’t
matter. Not anymore.

“If we head north,” she said, then swallowed,
“it’ll be winter soon. Do you really want to deal with the cold and
the snow? On our own? Neither of us knows how to hunt.”

“Or chop wood,” I added, my shoulders sagging
as I turned away. “Or anything at all, really. Never mind, it was a
stupid idea.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was the safest place we’ve
come across so far. If we knew how, we could’ve fortified it, but I
just don’t know how.”

She sounded so despondent, so empty, so full
of regret, that I didn’t know what I could say to her to make it
better that I hadn’t already said. I knew where she was, lost,
trapped in a place inside herself, unable to figure a way out, to
see anything other than the cause of her pain. I’d been there many,
many times before; I’d been ready to die in order to free myself
from it. But Evelyn hadn’t let me, and I refused to let her fall
victim either. I just didn’t know how to accomplish that.

“Then we keep going,” I finally said.
Noticing a shadow of movement, I squinted off into the distance.
“Like we’d planned to.”

“Maybe we could find a beach,” she said,
sighing. “Learn how to fish—”

“Eve,” I said, interrupting her as I slid off
the back of the Jeep. “Over there.” I pointed to the road just
beyond the gas station where a lone infected was making its slow,
shambling way toward us.

Swallowing another bite of peach, Evelyn
raised her eyes toward the infected. “We should go,” she said,
though she made no move to get up. “They’ll be more coming, what
with all the blood everywhere…” Her eyes glazed over, filling with
more tears.

“
Eve!” I shouted, slapping my hand against
the Jeep. “I know everything sucks right now! Believe me,
I
know
! But we can’t do
this! We can’t fall apart now!”

She looked at me through teary eyes, her lips
and hands trembling, but said nothing, still not moving.

Letting out a shuddering sigh of frustration,
I reached for the gun that had been lying between us. Gripping it,
I spun around and marched through the parking lot and toward the
infected.

It was an older one, not yet skin and bones
but decayed enough that I couldn’t tell whether it had been male or
female until I was within twenty feet of it. Like so many of the
infected, its clothing had been ripped away, exposing its mutilated
body. It had been a woman once, its right breast had been nearly
chewed off, only dried and clumpy sinew remaining. What was left of
her other breast was little more than blackened, sagging, and
shriveled skin.

I stopped in the center of the road and
raised my gun, pulling the trigger and letting loose a bullet. It
just barely grazed its shoulder, and the creature kept coming. I
let another bullet fly, this one missing it entirely.

“Dammit!” I shouted. Lifting the gun higher,
I squinted as I aimed. A blur of motion to my right had me glancing
up, startled, until I realized it was Evelyn running past me, a
large serrated blade in her hand. Wide-eyed with shock, I watched
as she barreled past me and directly into the infected, shoving it
hard and off its feet. It landed on the pavement with a loud crack
and then Evelyn jumped on it, straddling it, and sent the sharp tip
of her blade into its face.

Lowering my gun, I allowed my arms to fall
limply to my side. She was screaming now, stabbing the infected
over and over again, in its face, its neck, its chest. Just
mindless stabbing accompanied by gut-wrenching screams that made my
stomach start to ache.

I’d never seen Evelyn lose control before,
not like this, not so completely. It was so utterly heartbreaking
it drained all my strength right from me, causing me to drop to my
knees in the middle of the road. The gun fell from my weakened
grip, clattering to the ground beside me. Tears filled my eyes;
fat, sorrow-filled tears, tears I’d thought had all but dried up,
but in the face of Evelyn’s pain had increased tenfold.

Several long minutes passed during which she
continued to scream, stabbing blindly, desperately, until her voice
grew hoarse and her screams turned to sobs, the top half of the
body beneath her now little more than a mass of unidentifiable
gore.

After rising to her feet, she made her way
back to me, her entire body trembling violently, her clothing
covered in the same blackened sludge all the infected were filled
with.

Tears clouding my vision, I blinked up at
her, unable to speak, unable to do little more than cry. Awkwardly
she reached into her pants pockets, pulling the key to the Jeep
free, and with a quivering hand offered it to me.

“You should drive,” she whispered.

• • •

Having never had a good sense of direction, I didn’t
have a clue where I was headed or where the hell we even were,
especially since all the road signs were either gone or destroyed
beyond measure. Regardless, while Evelyn slept fitfully in the
passenger seat beside me, I continued to drive aimlessly, through
the night and until the sun was just starting to peek through the
clouds.

It was only when my eyes were starting to
close, exhaustion pulling me under, that I pulled off to the side
of the road we were on, just another desolate stretch of highway,
empty and devoid of life.

“Eve,” I said, rubbing her arm. “Eve…wake
up.”

Blinking sleepily, Evelyn groaned when the
sun shone bright against her newly opened eyes. “Morning,” she said
with a yawn. She surprised me with a smile, and even more so by how
strong she sounded.

“Are you okay?” I asked, brushing a lock of
strawberry-blonde hair from her eyes. “Feel better?”

Sitting up in her seat, she surveyed our
surroundings with only mild interest before turning back to me.
“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “I’m sorry about that.”

I shook my head, a sad smile on my face.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I whispered.

“Where are we?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been
looking for water, someplace for us to clean up a little.”

“There’s mountains over there,” she said,
shielding her eyes as she glanced off into the distance. “Probably
water too.”

I nodded. “Can you drive? I can’t keep my
eyes open.”

Turning back to me, she smiled again. “Yeah.
And, Lei?”

“Yeah?”

Taking my hand in hers, she squeezed. “We’re
going to be okay. I promise.”

I didn’t know why, maybe it was the peaceful
look on her face, or the familiar promise, one she’d made so many
times before, or maybe it was the combination of the two. Whatever
the reason, I wholly believed her.

We were together, and as long as we had each
other, I knew we would be okay.

Evelyn

Looking up through the open roof of the Jeep, I
watched as an eagle glided on the warm breeze above us. It had been
following us for a while now, and I couldn’t help but think that it
was some sort of sign, an auspicious symbol that all was going to
be fine. This beautiful giant bird, flying high above us and
looking down on the horror that had become of us all, still chose
to follow us. Every now and then it emitted a low squawk, as if to
announce it was still there, still with us.

Leisel was fast asleep beside me, her face
hidden from view beneath a threadbare blanket E had provided us.
Though he’d made good on his word to provide us with supplies, my
hatred for that man, raging in its intensity, flared to life once
again at the thought of him and his vulgar hands. Even now, out in
the wide open and far from Purgatory, I could still feel him
pressing between my thighs, feel his body pressed against mine. And
poor Alex, his entire life ended by one greedy thrust of E’s blade.
So many evils he’d committed, and he’d never be punished for them.
Not when men like him were the hierarchy in the world now.

Shaking away my thoughts of E, I tightened my
grip on the steering wheel and focused on only the task at hand. It
would do me no good to think of all that had gone wrong so far; my
grief and regret had nearly crippled me already. Now I was
determined to focus on one thing and one thing only—continued
survival for Leisel and me.

I had no idea where we were or where we were
headed, only that mountains covered with lush, green forest were
springing up all around us from beyond the dusty, unused highways.
So far we’d passed several towns but I’d refused to stop, not
trusting anything or anyone after so many bitter disappointments.
The small groups of infected we passed only reinforced my decision
to keep us moving.

As we traveled on, the road grew worse,
riddled with broken-down vehicles. The blacktop was ragged with
large, vicious splits, nature once again reclaiming what was
rightfully hers. Slowing the Jeep, I continued on, driving as
carefully as possible over the fissures.

The lack of momentum eventually woke Leisel.
Groaning groggily, she lifted her head from beneath the blanket,
her eyes finding mine.

“Everything okay?” she asked, stretching.

I nodded. “So far, so good. Still driving.
The roads are a mess, though.”

Shrugging out of the blanket, she sat up,
letting it slide to her feet. “Where are we?”

Laughing, I glanced sideways at her. “I have
no idea, but it’s pretty, right? And look…” I pointed up through
the open roof toward the eagle.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, sitting up
straighter. “That’s amazing.”

“It’s been following us for about an hour.” I
grinned at her. “I think it’s a good sign.”

Leisel smiled, her brown eyes glowing a
burnished gold beneath the sun. “I agree, it’s definitely a good
sign. Although…” Turning back to me, she frowned.

Glancing at her cautiously, I held my smile,
refusing to let anything ruin this peaceful moment. “What?”

“You kind of stink,” she whispered, wrinkling
up her nose. “And I’m pretty sure that’s brain matter you have on
your shirt.”

Looking down on the dried gore encrusting
nearly every inch of my clothing, I scowled. “I know,” I said with
a sigh. “We need to find somewhere to clean up, but”—I glanced
sideways at her—“I’m scared to stop.”