Chapter Three

 

The burning ammonia combined with the Feeder’s rotting stench sent my stomach spiraling into angry upset. I gagged and coughed, before burying my nose in my bicep while continuing to pop off bullets into the incoming hordes’ heads.

There were at least ten of them, although it was hard to find a solid total when they were dropping to the ground or moving so inhumanly fast. They ripped into the shelving that separated us from them, tossing metal racks and canned goods to the floor in clattering disarray. Their arms flapped in an effort to push everything out of the way, but then they would trip by the things at their feet.

Feeders were such an oddity. And while this was no place or time to study them, I couldn’t help but notice their contrasts. There were moments where their limbs and bodies moved with a preternatural grace that defied human capabilities and proved them to be the bloodthirsty killer-cannibals that would eat our faces if we gave them half an opportunity. But then there were times when they proved to be the bumbling no-brained monsters that couldn’t pick their feet up to step over something in their way.

I had a theory that this had something to do with the degenerative stage of the disease that infected them. While cognitive thinking ended almost immediately after they were exposed to the infection, it was a slower slide into the final stages of Zombie-ism. The brightness of their red eyes could indicate how far gone they were- the deeper the red color, the more likely they were to be able to leap high buildings and outrun a speeding train. The newer guys were the ones fumbling around, bumping into walls and moaning, “Braaaaainnssssssss.”

Well, okay, they weren’t exactly saying that.

My breathing rushed loud with fear and panic in my ears, but I kept my gun trained and steady as I aimed for the decaying heads filled with black teeth and covered in hair that fell off in wet, tangled, flesh clumps. Their skin was pasty white but peeled back in places to reveal fleshy, dark red muscle and bright white bone. Their blood dripped from their open wounds in a thickly, cloying liquid that was more dark brown than healthy crimson. They were disgusting.

And hungry.

“Reagan, on your right,” Hendrix called evenly.

I followed instructions immediately. It was a woman, impossible to tell her age, but dressed in business clothes with one low black pump still on her left foot. Her other foot was naked and bared to the elements. I glanced at her toes but knew they weren’t all there even while I didn’t take the time to count them. Her legs had been just as exposed to whatever she’d been through over the last two and a half years. There was barely any skin left, mostly frayed tendons and gristly bone. She stumbled after me, bow-legged with the effort to support her weight. Her clawed hands reached out for my face with yellowing, jagged fingernails.

I winced at the horror this woman had become and then aimed for her forehead. It took two shots for me to get her dead center, above the bridge of her nose. But the moment the bullet entered her useless brain, she dropped to the floor. She twitched for a couple more moments before whatever life was left in her leaked out and abandoned her to an empty, hollow vessel of gore.

I didn’t have time to dwell on her before I swung my handgun back to the rest of the horde. Kent was their obvious focal point because his head gushed so much fresh blood. He slipped and slid on the floor in an effort to crab-crawl backwards and get away. The floor was seriously slimy preventing him from getting enough of a grip to move anywhere. He looked like a cartoon on the ground, trying to get out of harm’s way with flailing arms and legs.

His gun had clattered somewhere out of his reach, and he flopped around completely helpless and hysterical.

“Just stay down!” Nelson shouted at him. “We’ll take care of these guys and get you out of here. You’re going to hurt yourself even more if you keep that up!” Bang, bang, bang went Nelson’s gun, proving his point.

Kent settled some; at least he stopped tossing his appendages around, but I could see how panicked he was.

We continued to beat back the Zombie assault; they kept multiplying. At one point, I swear, I thought I was going to have to use my next bullet on Kent, but Hendrix caught the Feeder right in the temple before he could land on Kent and bite his face off.

Kent let out a freakishly high-pitched scream and then went back to floundering in an attempt to get the limp Feeder off him. Eventually, he was able to push him to the side but his shrieking did not end.

“It’s burning!” he yelled! “It’s burning me!”

I looked down and convulsed with a disgusted shiver. The liquid, which was clearly not something as simple as water, tinged pink with blood. It had to be from Kent… he was bleeding from somewhere besides his head.

And despite the ungodly scent of ammonia in the air, the fresh blood sent the Zombies into a ravished frenzy.

In a level tone that twisted my insides with how carefully controlled he sounded, Hendrix came to the same terrifying conclusion that I had. Only when he said it out loud, in that voice that made it seem like he was barely holding it together, the situation seemed oh, so much worse. “This was a trap. They oiled the floors and poured some chemical mix over the top.”

My heart thudded in my chest, one solid boom that hit so hard I had to believe it would bruise. A trap. Who would intentionally make the Zombie Apocalypse harder?

“We have to get him up,” Nelson’s voice held only bleakness. “His skin is going to strip off.”

My stomach twisted harder.

I chanced a glance down at Kent now writhing in the inch-thick liquid. The pinkish hue had turned sickly red. We fired faster and faster, but not all our shots were accurate enough to make this quick. More often than not we had to put the Feeder down just a few inches from Kent or one of us.

My heart had picked up pace again until I was dizzy with the speed it was pounding out. The adrenaline pumping through my blood was hot and intense and sharpened all of my other senses into superhuman abilities. One clip emptied and I immediately refilled with another.

Hendrix, Nelson, Haley and I worked as a seamless unit. By now, we’d been in more than enough life and death situations than should be humanly possible. The outcomes so far had all been in our favor, but it was because we could come together in a unified line and work together to end the danger as quickly and efficiently as we could.

Kent’s tortured screams faded into high-pitched whimpers that were somehow infinitely worse. His body had almost given up the fight. He’d managed to get his upper torso onto the mat at my feet, but the lower part of his body stayed half-submerged in the dangerous chemical-based liquid.

“Reagan,” Hendrix’s voice still held that cold control, “Nelson and I will cover you and Haley while you get Kent outside. Do it now.”

Haley and I immediately followed orders, tucking our guns back into easily reachable places. We avoided stepping in the ammonia and oil mixture and started to reach for Kent.

“Do not reach underneath him,” Nelson ground out. “Try to lift him from the dry parts of his clothes.”

Psht. Easier said than done.

I tucked my hands inside my sleeves, and Haley followed suit. We struggled to move as quickly as we could, but it was difficult. We couldn’t quite reach the dry parts of his chest, and the only accessible part of him was his head. Although, he was in enough pain, so we were hesitant to start yanking on his noggin. The other part that made this so difficult was that he had splashed almost his entire body with the chemical during his thrashing.

A man’s life hung in the balance though so we reached forward and grabbed him. The first few seconds almost ended in utter disaster. I pulled as hard as I could on the front of Kent’s shirt expecting him to move with me.

It’s not like I didn’t have muscles… I had muscle tone. I was practically a freaking body builder after living on the streets and then being forced to survive by hunting, gathering and running for my life on a day-to-day basis.

But Kent was a man- a tall man, with the same kind of lifestyle as me.

If I had to make an educated guess, I would say he probably weighed around seven hundred pounds. Fine, call me out. That was probably something of an exaggeration, but he might as well have weighed the same as an elephant for all I could lift him.

Plus, he’d completely passed out by now- from fear or pain, I didn’t know.

Probably a little of both.

“We’ve got to work together, Reags,” Haley panted past her fear and panic.

Taking her advice, I huffed, “One, two… three.” And we pulled together.

We slid him a few inches, paused and slid him some more. When he was mostly out, Maya jumped in and helped. She grabbed his belt, with her hands tucked into her sleeves as well. Once his feet were the last thing to remain immersed, she jumped up and opened the door for us.

We continued to drag him out of the store, while the last of the gunshots fired into the air. Outside in the still-warm autumn air I sucked in gulping breaths of fresh air. I’d somehow managed to grow accustomed to the burning in every one of my pores, eyes, nose, mouth and lungs from both the strong ammonia scent and the light tones of rotting flesh that floated through the air after that surprise Zombie invasion.

My lungs shook in my chest and the effort to breathe felt agonizing. At the same time my air passage burned, the oxygen I sucked in felt ice-cold and splintering.

This had to be aftereffects of the chemical we’d been inhaling since we entered the store. It felt like my chest was compressing, and my throat was completely closed. The fresh air felt agonizing on my burning lungs, but I couldn’t get enough of it.

Kent lay still on the ground, pushed next to the brick wall of the convenience store. We needed to get him into the Suburban, but the guys would have to help us move him. Meanwhile, Maya had taken some surprising initiative and ran off for the SUV. I hoped she was headed for some water.

“We need to get his clothes off,” Haley wheezed. She bent over her knees, hands planted firmly on her thighs to hold her body upright. If her head was spinning as bad as mine, I knew this was a huge effort.

Realizing how dizzy I felt, I turned to watch Maya stumble to the side but catch herself.

This was so stupid.

The world in front of me dipped and turned and then flushed with little black spots that danced in my vision.

“We need to prop the door open, too.” My voice sounded reedy, strained and rasping to my ears. “If they stay in there any longer they’re going to be worse than us.”

Haley nodded, and I stumbled back to the glass door that had somehow remained unbroken in the two years since Feeders took over the world.

I yanked back and stumbled with the heavy door when the momentum took me with it. I waved an arm around, hoping to send in some fresh air, even while the faintly functioning rational part of my brain told me that it was a useless effort.

Haley started to tug on Kent’s clothing. First she unzipped his jacket and then tugged it off. Her hands stayed inside her sleeves the entire time, but if her palms and fingertips felt like mine, it didn’t entirely matter. My skin itched and burned in the most painful way, but the adrenaline helped to keep me focused.

I reached down and slipped off Kent’s shoe before jamming it beneath the door to prop it open. When I stepped away, the door slid, but not more than two inches before the shoe acted as a proper wedge.

I swooped down, feeling drunk and tortured at the same time, and unbuttoned Kent’s pants. This would be absolutely awkward if I didn’t realize how much pain he was in.

Once the pants were unzipped I began to wheedle them off, inch by stubborn inch. They were soaking wet and, I had a terrible feeling, sticking to his skin in the worst way. But at this point, I didn’t have a choice.

I didn’t know much about first aid in circumstances like these, but the most logical course of action to me was to take off the chemical-soaked clothing and rinse him off. He probably needed something like a fire-hose to get the chemical truly off his skin; unfortunately water-pressure was a thing of the past.

Finally, Maya returned with the emergency bottles of water kept in the trunk of the Suburban. By this time, Haley had removed his jacket and t-shirt, and I had his pants down to his ankles.

His underwear remained, and for good reason. I wasn’t a nurse. Hendrix, the team leader, could deal with that particularly sensitive spot.

I ripped off his other shoe, removed his pants completely and struggled with his socks until all he had left was his Apocalypse-style undies.

Poor guy.

If we made it out of this alive, I would tell Gage he needed to add “Men’s Underwear” to his teacher’s edition of the shopping list.

I wondered if Hendrix’s were this bad?

Although, I knew from careful observation that he didn’t wear underwear most of the time. Was this why?

I’d always kind of assumed it was a personal preference, but maybe not everyone was as lucky as Haley and me with our raided Victoria’s Secret stash of all things intimate.

Ok, wrong time to be going over those odds.

“Let’s turn him,” Maya suggested with some authority in her tone and I was too beat to argue with her.

Haley grabbed his shoulders, and I turned his thighs and together we propped him up on his side. Maya hissed in a disgusted breath that I soon echoed.

Kent’s back looked like… well, horrible. There was no other way to say that. His skin- the skin that remained- was vividly red and splotchy. And where the potent chemical had eaten away at his flesh, bright, crimson blood dripped all over him now mingled with gravel from where he’d been exposed to the ground. The ammonia- or whatever smelled like ammonia but could eat through anything- had bypassed his clothes and gone to work on all of his skin. From scalp to toes, this man was in serious trouble.

The three of us stared at him for a few seconds, unsure how to even process what we were looking at. And unless Maya had some secret medical training she hadn’t given up yet, we also felt extremely helpless.

In stunned silence, Maya handed a bottle of water to Haley and me, and we unscrewed them in almost perfectly synced harmony. I tossed my cap to the side; sorry, Global Warming, you’re the least of my worries and squatted carefully in order to reach “my section” better.

Slowly… so slowly I worried it wouldn’t do anything… I poured out the water over the irritated and bloody skin that needed a real doctor’s assessing eye and possibly an emergency skin graph.

I felt so helpless that tears pricked at my eyes.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to call 911 right now! What I wouldn’t give to have a car drive by at this exact moment and offer us assistance. A cell phone. An ambulance. An emergency room with trained professionals and antibiotic creams were a thing of the far past, and I couldn’t dwell on how easy life had been before… not unless, I wanted to lose all hope and throw myself back into the Zombie-fray and end my suffering quickly.

Because as much as Hendrix loved me, and the boy absolutely did love me, he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet right into my temple if I happened to get bit.

And that, my dear End-of-the-World survivors, was true, everlasting love.

Speaking of… I chanced a glance up and saw that my boyfriend and Haley’s boyfriend were finishing off the last of the flesh-eating parasites. Once I made sure Hendrix was all right, I went back to pouring water over the biting chemical that also wanted to become a flesh eater.

Was that part of the joke? If the Zombies didn’t get you, the ammonia would?

Except, this had to be strong as hell ammonia… maybe some industrial blend? What would do this to a person’s skin? And why would the person plant this trap to begin with?

Kane… a little voice whispered in my head. Kane did this.

But how? The stronger, more logical voice argued. And why? Why would Kane create something this deadly?

And how could he possibly guess we were going to come here. There had to be a hundred of these places in an hour’s drive circumference.

Still, the gut feeling that The Colony was behind this remained.

“Bored with me already, Babe?” Hendrix asked in a deceptively dry voice. I glanced back at him. He was trying to maintain his look of casual teasing, but the minute his lungs found fresh air, he doubled over in a severe coughing fit.

Nelson mimicked Hendrix’s exact movements at almost same time. I could hear the intake of breath as it fought to stay in the body. Their lungs rattled, their chests heaved, and their hands shook on their bent knees.

Definitely, a trap.

“We need to move him,” Haley said. “He’s going to bring more Feeders if we don’t.”

I nodded because I was too exhausted for words. The intense jolt of adrenaline waned abruptly after we’d stepped outside, and now I had to worry about slipping into shock.

I focused on my breathing and the slow inhales and exhales of finishing a breath. I focused on the meticulous pouring of water over all of Kent’s exposed skin. I forced myself to pay attention so that I wouldn’t spill and waste a single drop of water.

Kent jolted awake the moment the first drops of water landed on the worst of his back. His body bowed with the force of the pain until his appendages were steel rods and his wounded head vibrated with fear.

Haley whispered reassuring sweet things softly into his ear. I was more thankful than ever to have his feet during this; no offense to him, but I wasn’t a “sweet nothing” kind of girl. I was more of the “Walk on it. You’ll be fine.”

Except he couldn’t walk: he couldn’t even sit up.

Tears dripped down his eyes, and these little sniveling sounds wheezed in and out of his mouth. He seemed so truly pathetic at this moment; I couldn’t help but feel for him. His skin was completely gone in some places- stripped away by a chemical meant to harm all of us. And his limbs were starting to swell now. Plus, he still had that head wound from his fall. I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned into a concussion.

This could not be good. And the only expert we had to take him home to was Tyler.

Had I mentioned before how not qualified for her job she was?

But there was no one else better prepared than her.

“Holy shit, this is bad,” Nelson groaned.

“We’ll pick him up.” Hendrix ignored his brother and started spouting more directions. “Maya and Haley cover each other and go open the door to the backseat for us. Reagan, follow behind and make sure nothing else surprises us.”

“Gotchya,” I called back so that he knew I understood him.

I stood up and shook the sharp tingles out of my lower half. I’d been squatting too long for my legs to like the sudden upright position. I pulled my weapon back out and rechecked the clip and safety. When everything was to my specification, I looked up in time to meet Haley’s determined gaze and realize she’d done the same thing.

Hendrix counted down, a Parker family trait, and then signaled to Nelson. Both boys grabbed places on Kent’s body that would make him easy to carry and maneuver. The minute their hands dug into his extra sensitive flesh Kent let out another fiercely wounded cry of pain.

Hendrix and Nelson chose to ignore him, or at the very least tune him out. They walked at a quick pace back to the Suburban and shoved him into the SUV. He never stopped howling in pain, and while I very much wanted to tell him to hush before he drew more unwanted Zombie-attention, I also felt bad for him. He might not have been able to calm down anyway since he seemed to be in and out of consciousness.

There would be blood all over those seats by the time we got back to the compound, but it couldn’t be helped.

Now was not the time to worry about the visual appeal of the Suburban. Plus, Kent’s blood could mix and mingle with Kane’s dried blood and this could become like the car’s theme.

This man was in severe pain, and we needed to get him home now.

There were mega number of Zombies lurking from hidden places, and even though we’d felled the threat inside the grocery store, that did not mean we were out of danger.

Not by a long shot.

I winced before I could identify exactly where the pain originated. My hands. My hands!

What little bit of chemical had transferred to my bare palms was now eating away at my own skin. I took off for the back of the Suburban and forced the trunk open. There were a few water bottles left from the emergency stash, and I tucked one between my thighs after deciding I needed to remove the clothing that had come into contact with the same chemical. The slight itching-burning in my wrists and forearms from where I’d pulled the sleeves over my hands to transfer Kent were growing more prominent and getting worse- much worse.

I pulled out my hunting knife and carefully but quickly cut my shirt into a three-quarter-length sleeve. I fumbled a bit with the right sleeve, since my left hand wasn’t as deft, before Haley put a shaking hand out.

“Here, let me,” she ordered, sounding pained. “And then you get mine.”

I nodded and handed over the knife. She tore away the damp material and then we switched. I was very careful only to touch her contaminated fabric so I wouldn’t compromise the dry, safe parts of her shirt. Then we took turns pouring water over each other’s hands. I rubbed my hands together underneath the cool stream of water and instantly felt relief.

I could have gone for a bar of soap to get every last trace of the horrible stuff off my skin, but I would have to wait for that back at the compound.

By the time Haley and I were clean and not ready to scream in pain, our hands were bright red, but not bleeding. Whew.

“Us next!” Nelson demanded.

I hadn’t noticed them appear, but both Nelson and Hendrix stood behind us, clenching and unclenching their fists. They had exposed more of their skin to Kent and his chemical-war-fared body when they moved him and so we decided they needed to remove their shirts. Haley and I attacked our boyfriends with our individual hunting knives and ripped away their clothing before it could hurt them more severely.

This was a hard task. I mean, having to pour water over the flawless chest, rippling-with-hard-muscle forearms of a shirtless Parker brother was… work. Hard work.

One needed focus and courage; one needed temerity mingled with endurance. Not every girl could appreciate the raw, seamless beauty of a man’s chest perfectly toned with sinewy, sculpted muscle that stretched taut as it reached the length of his long limbs. This should count as overtime. Oh, the hardships I’ve had to endure during the Zombie Apocalypse-

“Reagan, could you stop ogling me until after you use the water? My hands are on fire.”

“Oh, right.” I cleared my throat and did as Hendrix asked. Oops.

“Haley, I give you permission to ogle me anytime you’d like. In fact, ogling is encouraged.” Nelson had shot us a smug grin right before Haley used some of her water to splash him in the face.

“What about ogling Hendrix?” Haley asked innocently. “Is that encouraged as well?”

Nelson grunted out something I couldn’t quite hear over my laughter. “But why would you ogle Hendrix when you have Nelson?” I taunted and then let out a surprised squeal when Hendrix grabbed me around the waist and pulled me roughly against his half-naked body.

He looked down at me, and the rest of the world seemed to fade away… or maybe Haley and Nelson walked away. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blue, bottomless depths of Hendrix’s gaze to figure it out.

Some infinitely strong emotion flashed in his searching eyes, something deeper than love, something so much more consuming than lust. His stubble had been trimmed recently, but his dishwater blonde hair could use a cut over his ears. One of his cheeks was bruised from playing around with his younger brothers the other day, and he had a black smudge of something on his temple. He smelled like soap and sweat, metal and earth; he smelled like a hundred different things that mixed together until it was only Hendrix. His full lips were pressed into a serious frown, and his arms had become a steel band around my waist.

“I don’t like what happened in there,” he all but growled at me. “I don’t like that your life keeps getting put in danger.”

“Nature of the world we live in, Babe,” I whispered through a throat thick with emotion. Haley and I cared more about what happened to each other than we did ourselves. That had been true since the beginning of this catastrophe. But the fierceness of Hendrix’s love and devotion for me shook my bones. I had never been loved like this before

I had never loved like this before.

“Doesn’t mean I like it,” he said simply, petulantly.

I tipped up on my toes and pressed a kiss on the underside of his jaw. “I don’t like it either.” My hands slid up his smooth skin, worshipping every inch of male perfection that he was. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my cheek against his vividly beating heart. His skin was hot against my face and felt so alive that I could feel the rhythm of his body echo in my own.

Hendrix dipped his head and nuzzled his face into the curve of my neck. “I love you to the end, Reagan,” he whispered against my throat.

“More than all and to the end,” I repeated our adopted vows that we’d stolen from his parents.

“You guys are super sweet,” Haley intoned with so much sarcasm I felt her words drip out of her mouth. “But we’re under attack again, so if you could wrap this up that would be fabulous.”

Hendrix and I separated so we could look around. Sure enough more Feeders had stumbled onto the road; no doubt drawn by the delicious smell of abundant blood and the scrumptious promise of fresh brains.

“Shit,” Hendrix muttered. “I really wanted not to worry about you for the rest of the day.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.” I smiled up at him and with my best impression of a Samuel L. Jackson shouting his script lines, said, “I kick Zombie ass.” To show off my impressive bad-assery, I twirled my gun around my pointer finger and cocked the sucker in a show of rodeo-esque flare.

“Get your Zombie-kicking-ass in the car, Reagan,” Hendrix ordered. “We’re going to forego the shootout this time and try to outrun these ones.”