Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (138 page)

“
That could have been
really bad.” Trent took the driver’s seat this time and took off
towards the camp again.

Cage hung his head out the window as
we drove off. “You just got infected, buddy, have a nice
day!”

Chapter 14

A New Camp

Trent parked the truck on the side of
the road. He thought walking up to them would seem less
threatening.

The girl we had acquired was curled
up in the fetal position in the back of the truck. Trent looked at
Cage disapprovingly.

“
Why would you bring
her?”

“
I am the reason her dad
was going to kill her, Dad. I wasn’t going to leave her there.” He
stood over the truck, looking down at the girl he had mauled
earlier. I could tell he wanted to reach down and get her
attention.

I stepped forward and shook her for
him. She didn’t want to move, so I shook her harder. She sat up
with hate-filled eyes.

“
You should have let him
kill me. I don’t want to eat people. You are all
monsters.”

I sighed and thought about how it
looked since Cage had bitten her, and then, basically, kidnapped
her.

“
We aren’t monsters. We
just want to fight the infection long enough to find a cure. We
won’t hurt you, anymore.”

She hopped down out of the truck and
brushed off her jeans. The fact that it was completely red from
blood and the mud in the bed of the truck didn’t faze her. The
little bit of dust from the drive, now that bothered
her.

“
I’m Amber. Keep him away
from me.” She pointed at Cage and backed away. I thought that was
only fair since he had attacked her.

As we made our way up the road, we
certainly didn’t look threatening. Every one of us was limping and
moving slowly. The scuffle I had with Cage had made me sore. Trent
was nursing the leg that had been shot. We were a sad- looking
crew. That probably wasn’t going to work in our favor because what
we did look like was a bunch of zombies.

As we approached the camp, I noticed
it was a lot different than the other one. This one looked more
like a military operation. This was not something that made me feel
warm and fuzzy inside. Trent took this as a good sign. He thought
that they would be more likely to help us since they were
military.

There were three tanks sitting
outside of the building. It was a white brick building that looked
like it had just been built. There was still scaffolding on the
side of it, and various pieces of lumber lying about. There wasn’t
anyone guarding the outside of the building.

The doors and windows were secured
with thick black bars. This place looked like it belonged to people
who were prepared for this type of thing. The cars in the parking
lot had a layer of pollen on them. It made me wonder how long they
had been parked and waiting.

Past the parking lot was a yard of
sorts. The grass was a vibrant green. It almost looked unreal, like
it had been put there to give the people the illusion that
something could grow. As we moved across the parking lot, I had a
strange sense of foreboding.

I wondered if anyone else thought
that this was a little strange. This building was just out here in
the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t anyone guarding the doors, but
there were army tanks outside. Something was off, and I had a
strong desire to turn and run.

We stopped before we reached the
grass. All of us exchanged looks with one another before we moved
onto the lawn. We were in the home stretch now. Just a few feet of
grass and we would reach our destination.

The ground blew out from under me and
sent me flying back into a car. There were clumps of dirt and grass
falling all around me. Somewhere, Rose was screaming. I couldn’t
see right away because there was a lot of smoke. What the hell had
blown up? I realized they must have been waiting for us to step on
the grass. I had been right; nowhere was safe. Now I rubbed my
eyes, trying to clear them enough to search for Cage, Trent, and
Rose.

I saw Amber lying a few inches in
front of the car. She was staring at me, but not moving. Her neck
was turned at a funny angle. She was dead. I heard another scream
and realized that it was coming from me. Two arms wrapped around me
from behind and I fought as hard as I could.

“
Cassie.” I knew that
voice. I was looking into Cage’s eyes when he spun me
around.

“
Amber’s, Amber is…” I
couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

“
I know. Let’s find the
others and get out of here.” The distinct sound of gunfire came
from the direction of the building. We crouched down behind the
cars, trying to avoid certain death. I spotted Trent, army crawling
towards us, underneath the cars.

“
Where is Rose?” I said it
quietly, as if the shooters hearing us made a difference. They
would shoot us if they could.

“
Here, I’m here.” Rose was
scooting to us on her butt. Her arm was missing. Where her arm
should have been, there was a bloody mess. Tendons were hanging
down and blood was quickly gushing from them. I was sick to my
stomach, but I held it together for her sake.

Trent sprang into action. He ripped a
large piece of his shirt off and tied it around the stump that used
to be Rose’s good arm. Too bad it couldn’t have been her infected
one. This was a strange way for me to look at it.

“
Stay low, everyone. We
have to get back to the truck.”

Crouching and crawling behind cars,
it felt like it took us forever to get to the edge of the parking
lot. Rose whimpered quietly, as I’m sure her arm was in a lot of
pain. She was still losing a lot of blood. I felt certain she would
soon meet the same fate as poor Amber.

The color had drained from her face
and as Trent helped her to the edge of the parking lot; she didn’t
look good. We had an open road to run across to get back to the
truck. I feared one of us would be shot on the way.

“
Stay here. I will go get
the truck and y’all will have to jump in. Got it?”

We nodded our agreement and watched
Trent head down the road as fast as he could with his bum leg. The
spray of bullets had stopped, but I had a bad feeling they were
just reloading. Right as Trent reached the truck and jumped in, a
bullet pierced the windshield, shattering the glass. Luckily, it
was on the passenger side and didn’t hit Trent.

He quickly came driving up to us and
Cage jumped in first. I helped Rose up and we got into the truck
together. I tried not to notice that I was now covered in her
blood, as well. We drove in silence and I kept my arm around Rose
as her sobs grew quieter.

Chapter 15

From Bad to Worse

Rose was gone. Her eyes remained
open, with tears still clinging to her lashes. Her breathing had
stopped and she had grown rigid beneath my arm. I didn’t tell the
others for a few minutes. I had to deal with the loss. She had felt
like a friend. She had been my partner in this, and now she was
gone.

“
Guys, Rose is dead.” As
soon as the words left my lips, Trent slid the truck to the side of
the road. He was out of the truck with Cage and around to the
passenger side before I knew what was happening. They pulled Rose
from the truck and set her on the ground. As they went to get back
in, I panicked. I leapt from the truck to stand by my
friend.

“
We are not leaving her
here.” I didn’t feel confident but I put my hands on my hips. “She
is going to come back. She will be all alone, and I will not
abandon her. ”

Trent got out and came around to me.
“Cassie, when she comes back, she is going to have one agenda. That
agenda will be to eat me. I can’t have a full- fledged zombie
riding around with us like it’s hunky-dory. “

“
Can’t we just put her in
the back? If she acts crazy, then we can turn her loose. Please,
Trent, she is one of us!” I knew I wasn’t being rational. I didn’t
care. I felt like I should fight for Rose. I would hope she would
do the same for me.

I stood my ground. Cage and Trent
exchanged a look. They had left their loved one behind; they barely
knew Rose. The next thing I knew, they were tossing her body in the
truck bed. They weren’t gentle with her at all. Trent pulled a
heavy chain from behind the seat and wrapped it around her. He
bound her one good arm to her body and then wrapped it around her
neck. She was then chained to the truck by massive hooks. This was
better than leaving her? I decided it would have to be.

When we got back in the truck, there
was a lot of tension. The fact that there was more room made it
easier for me to ignore my companions. No one spoke for a long
while as we bumped along down the road.

“
If she comes after me,
Cassie, I’ll shoot her. You understand?” Trent looked at me and I
nodded. If she came after him, he should shoot her. There was no
reason to put the only uninfected one in danger if Rose was a
threat.

I relaxed a little. The fact that he
spoke to me meant he wasn’t that angry. “Where are we going
now?”

“
I am not sure. I have
been wrong about the safety camps helping us. We are going to have
to go right to the source.”

“
Going to the source of
what?” I tried to rub some mud off of my pants. I succeeded in
making it look worse. I looked up and caught Cage watching me. I
smiled at him and felt warm when he returned it.

“
We are going to where
this whole disease thing started, the Centera Factory. They let
this thing loose, and they should have the cure.”

He seemed so certain of this. I was
curious if he was hoping it was true, or if he actually knew that
was where it started. Trent seemed like he would buy into any
conspiracy theory, once he got desperate enough. I knew that the TV
had reported that the Centera was involved, but they reported a lot
of things.

I periodically checked on Rose, but
she hadn’t seemed to move at all. From what I could tell in my
short time with the effects of the disease, people were affected
different ways and died different ways. I had a small bite so I was
transforming slowly. Ms. Hamrick had her legs chewed off so she
transformed a lot quicker; of course, she had died from blood loss.
Rose wasn’t bitten badly, but it probably wouldn’t take too long
for someone to come back if they had been bitten before they died.
I didn’t think the cure would work for Rose, if there was one. It
would probably only reverse the effects on the living. We drove for
a couple of hours before the sun began to set. We needed to find
somewhere to sleep for the night. Trent spotted a barn up ahead and
thought we should check it out. Perhaps, it would be abandoned and
we could make camp there for the evening. It was pretty close to
the highway so it wouldn’t be hidden if people came by with not so
nice intentions.

As he pulled into the little
makeshift road that led up to the barn, we looked around for any
sign of life. Not noticing anything that immediately alarmed him,
Trent parked the truck right outside the barn door. He held up his
hand for us to wait and crept inside the barn with his
gun.

He was gone for a couple of minutes.
When he returned, he opened the barn door up wide.

“
Cage, pull the truck in
here. This will do for tonight.”

He pulled the truck into the barn and
Trent shut the doors behind it. I looked around at our home for the
evening. The pitchfork and rake hanging on the wall might come in
handy, if we needed it. There was a loft that had a sketchy ladder
propped up on it. There was hay everywhere. Fortunately, the barn
didn’t smell bad. It must have been for a farmer without
animals.

I was suddenly aware of how beat-up
my body felt. I sank down onto the floor and pressed my back into
the barn wall. Trent looked at me, and then over at Cage. He seemed
to be contemplating something.

“
I know what we need.” He
went over to the truck and pulled out a bottle with a black label.
He had brought liquor! I had consumed my fair share of liquor even
though I wasn’t even eighteen yet. I had access to it through older
cousins and my parent’s liquor cabinet. I hoped he planned on
sharing, because I could use something to numb me for a little
while.

He poured out the contents of a water
bottle and poured half the liquor into it. Trent was going to spend
the evening drowning his sorrows. We had all lost so much. It
seemed like a good idea. In hindsight, getting wasted when there
are undead hungry creatures wandering around was not the best
plan.

“
This is mine.” He handed
Cage the bottle and walked over to climb in the truck. “That one is
for the infected.”

He turned on the truck and let some
music fill the barn. It was some sad country song, but I was
grateful for a small sense of normalcy. I knew he wouldn’t leave it
on long because he needed to conserve the truck’s gas and battery
power.

Cage and I settled onto the barn
floor and passed the bottle back and forth. I welcomed the burn in
my throat as a sign I was still human. I was feeling less human as
the days went by. It had only been three days since I had been
bitten, but so much was happening.