Day One (Book 3): Alone (22 page)

“Well, I can assure you, you aren’t getting a gun this time, slick,” I said and moved closer to Rachel where I gave her pistol back.

He glared at me in the kitchen with a look that could have killed me a hundred times over and it took everything I had to keep from laughing in his face. The look he wore was priceless and had it not been for me wanting to save what little battery I had on my cell phone, I would have whipped it out and taken a few pictures of him just to look at them later and relive the joy I felt at this very moment.

Chapter Ten

There was nothing he could do to stop what was coming. No amount of words, begging, pleading or anything to that tune would win him what he so desperately desired. Not that a narcissistic type like him would even perform such actions in front of us, as his pride would not allow it. His eyes, however, told a far different story and with each new paragraph, I began to learn more than I’d ever wanted to about the waste of space. I just wanted to shoot him in both legs, drag him across the kitchen floor and offer him up to whatever had been at the back door.

For the sake of keeping myself in god graces with Rachel, as I would most certainly need her soon, I sided against my thoughts and left Morris where he stood.

“How is getting all of us killed going to solve anything?” Morris asked, still trying to weasel his way out of leaving the relative safety of the house.

I shoved the barrel of my short rifle toward him. “If you say another word you’ll have two injured hands. Do you understand?”

Morris simply nodded and grabbed a dishtowel to wrap around his still bleeding hand, mumbling something under his breath that I didn’t give a single shit about. He had no friends to back him up, he was unarmed and there was nowhere for him to run off too. He knew what waited on the other side of that door like Rachel and I did, so there was no need to remind him. Rachel and I retired to the living room to speak in private and work out the details of our swiftly approaching bad decision.

Rachel clung to the words I had spoken and I could see her chewing them over. There was no way for me to know if she thought the idea was absurd, maybe a good idea, or simply the stupidest thing she’d ever heard before. All I could do was stand there listening to the falling rain waiting for her to respond.

“Is that the best you got?” She asked, looking at me.

I felt the irritation creeping across my skin like an abrasion on bare asphalt and was about to give her a piece of my mind. She stopped me before I could fully react. “I didn’t say it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard – it
could
rank somewhere near the middle though – but I have nothing really to offer, so who am I to judge,” she said.

I moved to the front window and lightly pulled the curtain a few inches to the side, just enough to see out, yet not give away my position to anyone that could be on the street out front. The rain wasn’t falling in sheets anymore and it allowed me to see further than earlier, however, the street was filled with almost two dozen of the undead now and there was absolutely no way to know for sure if any of the runners were hiding amongst those twenty plus obstacles. The only real way to know was to venture out there and see.

“Your gun is silenced, where mine isn’t,” Rachel started. “So when we head out there and run into trouble, which we will, I’ll just be ringing the dinner bell.”

My eyes swiveled to where she stood and locked with hers. “Not if you two stay behind me, you won’t. The only time you should use your weapon is if the shit hits the fan and we run into a severe snag,” I told her. “Besides, they already know we are in here, so the dinner bell has already been rung.”

“Walking out that door is going to be a ‘severe snag’ in and of its own,” she countered.

“That’s not what I meant,” I replied. “A snag would be me having trouble reloading, dropping a mag, or falling. At that point we’ll be more than noticed by a great many of them, so the noise of you pistol really won’t matter.”

Rachel nodded her head to my statement. “Okay, I can live with that…”

“But?” I interrupted her.

“There are three of us and two guns. I know that one gun alone can defend several people at one time,
but
out there when things get bad, then what?” she asked. “We can come up with all kinds of scenarios in here in relative safety. Out there though, all it take s is one person falling apart or doing something stupid to get the rest of us killed. And then there’s the question of where we are going from here?”

I listened intently to each of her words, trying to understand perfectly where she was coming from and where she was going with them. I needed to be positive that I was leaving with two other people that would do whatever it took to ensure that we all made it to our destination alive. If there was even the slightest hint of doubt in her or Morris’ voices, then I’d be forced to go alone and come back for them after I had found a suitable place to hide in for the remainder of the day, maybe even all night. It wasn’t a move I wanted to make by myself, yet the thought of running aimlessly around with one person that wasn’t sure we should be moving at all and a second person, that if given the chance to kill me, would do it in a heartbeat, was not my idea of a good time.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw it from a different perspective. A perspective that I was not entirely fond of, seeing it through a different set of eyes. I began to wonder if maybe I had overloaded my ass somehow and would soon find out how bad. “I’ll go alone,” I said. “I’ll find us a place further away, then come back and get you two.”

Rachel was mortified with my choice and quickly shook her head. “No! That’s not a smart move at all! We all go together or none of us goes at all,” she said.

I stopped her. “Rachel, we don’t have a choice. Those things know where we are and it’s only a matter of time before they get in here and flush us out to a street, which is full of the undead now. This place isn’t safe anymore and I cannot for the life of me understand why you now see things differently,” my words spewed out upon her. “Minutes ago you were ready to take the whole world on, but now you’re acting as though this was my idea and you hate it as much as he does.” I pointed to Morris. “I’m going, because I’ve got two kids out there that need me and I can’t do a damn thing for them stuck here in this place.”

“And getting yourself killed alone isn’t going to help them either,” Rachel spurted. “And I never said I wasn’t going out there… that was your call, remember.”

“No, I didn’t… yes, I did say that. Whatever!” The rage was coming on once more. I snapped. “They would expect me to fight to stay alive just as hard as I would fight to keep them alive, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. I said I’d go to keep from fighting!”

There was a brief moment of silence between us. It was long enough for me to gather my thoughts and piece my words together better. I didn’t want to keep this arguing up any longer, as it was getting all of us nowhere fast. We needed solutions, not more problems to deal with. The world we all lived in and knew had ended and that formed the largest problem any of us should have to face, but we were putting things above that and missing the whole point of trying to survive. What good is life if you have nothing to live for, nothing to hope and dream of, nothing to focus on in those fleeting moments of defeat that drive us continually forward?

“Look,” I said to Rachel. “I don’t want to argue or fight about any of this anymore. If you want to come with me, then we’ll all go together. If you don’t, then say so and we’ll figure something else out.” I took a few deep breaths. “My kids are out there somewhere and it’s my job to protect them… something I haven’t done very well so far, but that doesn’t mean I can change and better myself.”

She took a step backward. “There’s nothing I can say to that. You have your mind made up and it involves your children, which comes first over anything else. Period!” She paused a moment to think of her next series of words or to simply think something else up. “I know you might not feel this way right now, but you are a good dad. I don’t know anyone else that would do the things you’ve done for their kids. Everyone I know would be dead by now or worse.”

Morris patted her on the shoulder, seeing that she had enough power over me to decide what happened and when. “You made the right choice, Rachel,” he stated and smiled. She yanked her shoulder away from him, although kept her eyes upon me.

“I’ll come back… I promise you that,” I told her, unaware if she believed me.

“If you’re going to leave, then let us have that rifle and you take her pistol. That way if those things get in here before you get back we’ll at least have a chance to defend ourselves,” Morris said and Rachel and I turned to see him a few feet away.

“I told you to watch that door,” I said angrily.

He ignored my words, offering his own instead. “If you’re leaving, then you aren’t leaving us here unarmed or with some damn pistol! If that’s the case then we might as well throw harsh language at those damn things, because that pistol isn’t going to get shit accomplished!”

“He knows what he’s doing, Morris. Just like he is aware of the risks involved,” Rachel said, trying her best to convince him of that. “That’s his weapon and he’ll need it more than we will if he’s going out there alone. But like I just said, that’s his choice not ours.”

“I don’t give a flying shit what he is aware of or not! If he leaves… that rifle stays here with us!” Morris stated in a louder voice.

I stood there watching them fight until I had had enough of their drama and cut in. “I don’t need permission from either of you to leave this house, first of all,” I said loudly. “And as far as this rifle staying anywhere but with me, that’s not even worth a discussion. It comes with me wherever I go!” I turned and moved away before either of them could muster a single reply or rebuttal to my statement.

Morris followed me to the door, guessing I was just going to exit through it like there was no one outside. I tried pressing my ear to the cold wood to get a better mental image of what lie on the opposite side, although Morris’ voice stopped that from happening.

He put a hand on my left shoulder and pried down hard as he spoke; trying what little patients I had left. “I said you aren’t going anywhere without us!”

Playtime was over with and my patience was non-existent anymore. I spun, and using the leverage of the solid door, pushed as hard as I could, breaking his death grip from my shoulder and bounding him across the living room. He tripped over the coffee table and fell to the floor. My short rifle was up and at the ready, my voice boomed louder than the growing storm. “Touch me again and see what happens to you! I dare you!” My voice exploded. “I saved
your
ass; it wasn’t the other way around, dickhead! Had you left me the fuck alone like I told you to several times, then you’d be safe with your buddies and not in the situation you are now. This is your fault, not mine!” My voice was growing along with my anger. “You ever put your hands on me again or think you can push me around like those dumbasses at the school, I’ll show you what pain is really all about!” I popped three rounds that skimmed so close to his flattened body that he could feel the concussion off of each piece of lead.

Rachel remained quiet and as still as the dead, figuring that when I was finished with Morris I may turn my last ounce of rage towards her.

Morris stared at me from the floor, neither trying to get to his feet or engage me in further conversation. I guess he was positive that I wasn’t playing around anymore and I’d shoot
him
if he attempted to touch me again and not the floor.

“I didn’t plan any of this,” I said aloud. “All I wanted was my son, and then to be left alone. That was it! How hard is that to understand?”

“I… I, was looking out for my people,” Morris stated.

I pointed at Morris. “You and that sick fuck, Smith, started this the moment I awoke in that classroom. Did you expect me to just give up and let you experiment on me as well? You wasted time – valuable time – that I could have used to locate and get my kid before he got further and further away. Now he could be anywhere and surrounded by people that want to hurt him or possibly neglecting him to feed their own wants and needs.” The rage I had felt that day was coming back to me like a long dead memory. It’s clenched fists, swollen with rigor mortis, unable to release what it held so tightly. “But let’s not pretend anymore, shall we. He’s dead isn’t he? Killed by that sick, worthless bastard you helped protect… which makes you just as sick and worthless as he was. It also makes you just as guilty,” I added.

I could see Morris’ eyes darting around the room, possibly looking for a quick way out or perhaps something he could use to defend himself against my ever growing hate.

“Maybe we should all just take a breath here?” Rachel suggested. Her subtle plea only drew my emotions to her, along with a gun barrel.

“There’s no way you can stand there and tell me you weren’t aware of what was going on in that school and expect me to believe you!” I told her.

“I wasn’t!” She sharply cut back.

“Bullshit!” I shouted to her. “That’s why you didn’t shoot me a few hours ago, because you saw me as your only way out of that place and away from him,” I said pointing at Morris once more. “The guilt you felt for not doing anything to save any of those people is eating at you like a cancer… slowly consuming you from the inside, so much so that you were willing to run away with the bad guy, thinking the pain will die! Well, it won’t!”