Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive (11 page)

T
he water was cold, heated by a solar panel that,
unlike the beach house, had seen better days. Tipping his head back, Paul let
the rain shower head wash the soap and dried blood from his face, sending a
swirl of pink circling down the drain between his feet. He leaned a hand
against the sand-colored tiles and hung his head, his promise to Olive ringing
hollow in his ears. Everything wasn’t going to be fine and he damn well knew it.
But what was he supposed to tell her? They were screwed and it was only a
matter of time before her crying or slow little feet got them all killed? Spitting
cold water from his mouth, he pushed it all from his mind and tried to
concentrate on what came next. Tried to envision them succeeding in this world
gone mad because if he could see it, it would come to pass. If he kept focusing
on the worst that could happen, then it would. Life was like that. Sometimes it
just needed a push in the right direction, and so did Paul.

The fogged up
shower door clicked opened, jerking him from his thoughts and catching him off
guard. Instinctively, he went for the gun that wasn’t strapped to his leg.
“What the fuck!” he said, covering his privates with both hands as Wendy stepped
into the two-person shower. Tendrils of steam embraced her naked body, cupping
her breasts and tickling her impish grin as she shut the glass door behind her.

“Miss me?”

He backed against
the tiled wall, hands over his crotch. “This is not cool, Wendy. Get out.”

Her abrupt
laughter echoed in the space. “Oh my God! This water is so cold!” Coming
closer, she set her hands on his unprotected chest and gazed up into his eyes,
the smell of bourbon floating from her lips. “Looks like we’ll have to share
our body heat.”

“I’m serious,
Wendy; I need a minute alone here.”

“And I need a
minute of you.” Her hands read his chest hair like brail, rubbing circles into
his flesh. “I’m tired of playing games with you, Paul. I want you to know how I
feel.”

“Jesus Christ, are
you drunk? Please get the fuck out of the shower, Wendy.”

She ran a tongue
across her lips, water spraying off her bosom. “I love you.”

His brow folded.
“I don’t care.”

“You will.” Standing
on her toes, she wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him to her,
kissing him softly on the lips.

Paul yanked away
and smacked the back of his head against the tiles. Pain and anger sparked in
his eyes, weakening her shit-eating grin. He grabbed her wrists and held her
out, face turning red. “I told you, there is no us and there never will be an
us
.”

Her eyes fell between
his legs, fueling her playful smile. “Well, it looks like somebody’s happy to
see me.” Breaking free of his grasp, her hand slid down between their slick
bodies and stroked his shaft with fevered pumps. She took his hand and brought
it to her breasts, pressing his palm into her slippery flesh. “See, you do like
that.”

Paul tried to stop
her but her grip was tight and warm and the shower was spinning around him.
Water ran into his eyes and mouth, turning everything into a steamy blur. “Stop,”
he breathed, blood rushing in his ears.

Her fist pumped
faster. She forced his hand down between her legs where it was wet and warm.
Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and chased her breath. “Oh God,” she
moaned as the soft invasion of his fingers tuned her body to his wants and
needs. Pulling him closer by the cock, her chest rose and fell, voice coming
out as a shaky whisper. “Rub it against me.”

“That’s enough!”
He pushed her away, face warping with disgust. “What is wrong with you?”

Her eyes dropped
to the erection twitching in the spray between them, unable to stop the smile
pulling on her lips. “Apparently nothing.”

Paul stepped
around her and snatched a towel from a hook, stepping out into the bathroom. “You
ever do that again and I swear to God…” He trailed off, wrapping the towel
around his waist and honing his gaze into razor tight slits.

“You’ll do what,
Paul? Sit there and do nothing while I jerk you off again?” Turning off the
water, she grabbed another towel and got out. “I see the way you look at her.”

“What? Who?”

Wendy stopped in
front of him, towel hanging in her hand, water pooling around her bare feet. “She
can’t give you what I can.”

He shook his head.
“Wow, you really are insane.”

“Paul, Stephanie
is locked at the knees.” The towel slipped from her fingers to the floor. “But
I’m not.” She sauntered closer, pressing Paul up against the double sink. “And
we both know you can’t control your…
impulses
.
Just ask Rebecca.”

When her fingers
coiled around him through the towel, he knocked her hand away. “You’re wrong.”

Her face hardened,
turning her blue eyes to ice. “Paul,” she said calmly, “you can’t let your
feelings get tangled up with another woman. Not now. It’s too soon after Sophia.”

The way she said
Sophia’s name sent a current of grief and repugnance shooting through him like
high voltage electricity, curling his hands into fists. He set his jaw,
breathing through his teeth. “We’re done here.”

“I can give you
what you need,” she whispered, sending her palms to explore his chest muscles.
“Right here. Right now.”

“I don’t
need
a headache,” he snapped, whipping
the bathroom door open and storming out. Paul stopped dead in his tracks, water
dripping from his nose to the hardwood flooring around his feet. Stephanie stared
blankly at him from the other side of the pool table, slowly chalking a stick
in her hand while Billy pulled the triangle from the tightly racked balls and
dropped it on its hook. Gaze hooking on Stephanie’s fixed stare, he looked over
his shoulder to find Paul standing behind him.

Cheeks flushing,
Paul bolted for the stairs with his head down, ignoring the surprise in
Stephanie’s eyes when Wendy came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel and a
mischievous grin. Cringing, he took the stairs two at a time, desperate to hole
up in a spare bedroom with his backpack for the rest of his tormented life.

I
n the living room, Paul watched the flames jump in the
fireplace through vacant eyes while Brian and his family exchanged war stories
with the others in the kitchen. His glassy-eyed gaze rose to the framed
photograph hanging above the mantel. Brian, Dot and Olive were dressed in their
Sunday best and, for the first time since this pandemic began, Paul didn’t
wonder what happened to them. Didn’t wonder where they went because maybe they could
go there too. No, he knew exactly where they went. Knew there was nowhere they
could go. Knew this was as good as it gets because those smelly bastards hiding
in the moonlit shadows were getting smarter each and every day. Just over a month
into this madness, and the dead were already setting traps and knowing when
they were being tricked. A chill ran through him like someone just walked over
his grave. He leaned back into the couch and let the orange light flicker over
his unshaven face. His eyelids were heavy and he just wanted to crawl into his
old bed with his beautiful wife and wake up to find everything had just been
some unbelievably realistic nightmare because, in the end, he didn’t have what
it takes to protect these people. Precedent spoke volumes. Promises be damned.

A hand landed on the
back of his and squeezed. His bloodshot gaze trailed up the decomposing arm to meet
Sophia’s sunken eyes that used to sparkle in the sunshine. Now they were partially
hidden by long oily bangs and just as dead as everything else. She smiled at
him and, even with the rot peppering her cheeks and the blood dripping from her
nose onto the dirty nightgown she never owned, she was still beautiful. If he
tried hard enough, he could still see the woman he knew and loved. The woman he
married in a church with a wall of stained glass glowing behind them in a
kaleidoscope of magical colors. Not this…
creature
sitting before him.

“You are right,
Paul. You are smarter than they are,” she whispered, rubbing his hand and
leaving flakes of dead skin behind. “You will drive them back and let nothing
stand in your way. You are not alone anymore.”

He stared at her
for an uncertain moment, swallowing dryly and then licking his lips. “Does it
hurt?” he asked in a cold whisper, his breath coming out in a visible stream.

The smile wilted
on her moldering lips. The ones he still wanted to kiss. Billy laughed at
something out in the kitchen and Sophia pulled her hand back. “Yes,” she
whispered, twisting her skeletal fingers in her lap.

He studied her
black holes with white plumes uncurling from his mouth. “What can I do?”

Her eyes nearly
brightened, indicating something lying beneath. Something encouraged. “Win.”

Classic black tee
rising and falling on his chest, Paul took her hand and squeezed, not caring
that her skin was cold and wet. “I miss you so much.”

Sophia gave him a
pitiful smile through the runny locks dangling in her face, as if she felt
sorry for him. Embarrassed by his ignorance. “I miss us. Our home.”

The image of
Sophia standing next to the stove before their house exploded tore through his
mind. “Did you…”

“Yes,” she interrupted,
watching his eyes glaze over as a stark realization struck a heavy chord within.

His mouth opened
but not even his breath would come out. The room shook around the edges of his
vision, blurring everything but her into shaky scratches. “Will we ever…”

“No,” she brusquely
replied, taking her hand from his. “Not if you fail.”

“Fail?” he finally
breathed, noticing she was now standing in front of the crackling fireplace, a
ghostly silhouette with her filthy toes barely touching the floor, much like
her shadow in Kohl’s.

“There is no rest
for us,” she told him, mournfully peering around the room and seeming to see
something else besides the oversized furniture and heavy woodwork. “Not here.”

Despite the fire’s
heat, his breath rushed out in frigid waves. “Where are you?”

For a moment, a
speck of green glittered in her eyes, a hint of the old Sophia, a morsel of the
amazing woman she used to be. Then it was gone, snuffed out by a creeping gloom
that refused to die. “Trapped,” she answered, slowly backing away without
moving a muscle.

His Adam’s apple
bobbed. “Trapped where?”

She shook her head
and floated backwards, broken toenails scraping loudly against the hardwood
flooring.

Scooting to the
edge of the couch, words stuck to his tongue like tacks, heart breaking all
over again. “What about Dan?”

Sophia smiled like
he was a fool for even asking. “Dan is here and he will help. They all…
want
to help.” Anger flared in her eyes,
a red light at the end of a long dark tunnel, and for a moment he thought she
would scream so loudly the wall-to-wall windows would explode into the backyard.
“They have to,” she said through clenched teeth, balling her bony fingers into
knots.

“Why?”

Her face relaxed
and her hands uncoiled. “This is not where it ends.” Her voice was as light as
her feet, both drifting further away. Paul reached out, grasping an amorphous wisp
of green smoke that slipped through his fingers and curled up the chimney.

“Paul?”

And then the fire
was back, crackling and popping, and she was gone all over again. Pulling his
hand back, his heart sank. This entire time he thought he was shithouse crazy,
talking to ghosts in the throes of the most potent posttraumatic stress
disorder known to mankind, and actually taking their advice. After all,
disturbing dreams were one of the first signs but this was no dream. No, this
was as real as the fire flushing his cheeks with heat. Sophia was actually
sitting right here on this leather couch, holding his hand. Just like when
everyone saw Dan at Camp Dodge.

They all…want to help.

Who wants to help?

They have to.

But why?

“Paul?”

Sophia’s words
rang like church bells inside his head, triggering his imagination to paint a
picture of the millions upon millions of people this virus consumed in a
rolling wave of death and sorrow. All those angry souls, crying out for
retribution, locked in a foul limbo stretching endlessly to a glassy horizon
they would never touch.

Trapped.

“Hello?”

He looked down,
wrinkling his brow when he saw his hand and the couch free of Sophia’s dead skin
cells. The fire popped, spitting orange embers up the chimney and bringing
Olive into focus. She stared blankly at him, a bowl of Ramen noodles wrapped in
her small hands.

“Are you okay?”

He blinked at her,
unsure how to respond to such a complex question. She was so young, like Matt
and Mike. The same Matt and Mike he let get ambushed at a gas station out in
the middle of nowhere because he wasn’t on point. And just like those two,
Olive had her whole life ahead of her. He shut his eyes against the pain coiling
inside his chest because this little girl, with her pigtails and
Doc McStuffins
shirt, had a lot more
years left in the tank and it was too much responsibility to bear. Too much
guilt for one man to shoulder when he failed yet again. And the truth was…he
would fail again.

Here’s the
writing.

Here’s the wall.

Precedent spoke
volumes.

“Hello?”

Opening his eyes,
Paul tried to smile. “I’m fine.”

Olive held the
bowl out. “Dad says you need to eat,” she said, glancing at the fireplace.

“Your dad is a
smart man,” he replied, taking the bowl and sinking into the cream-colored
couch. “Thank you, Olive.”

She headed for the
kitchen, suddenly stopping and turning to face him. “Thank you for saving us
today. My mom was really scared.”

Breathing in the
steam rising from the bowl in his hands, Paul wanted to tell her not to thank
him yet because this was far from over. Wanted to tell her no one was
saved
from this evil incarnate thrust
upon them for no damn good reason. But nothing came out and she turned for the
kitchen. “Olive?”

Spinning back
around, her eyebrows rose into her freckled forehead.

“Did you…see
anyone standing there?”

She followed his
eyes to the fireplace. “When?”

“Just now, when
you brought me these noodles.”

“No.”

“No?” Nodding
disappointedly, he blew on the soup. “Okay.”

“Why was someone
here? Should I get my dad?”

“Well, you won’t
have to go far.” Brian smiled down at his little girl, combing crumbs from his
beard with Wendy at his side. “What’s wrong, sugar-plum?”

“Paul saw somebody
in here.”

Brian frowned and
stopped tugging on the beard, the wrinkles in his face making him look more
like Olive’s grandfather than her dad. His worried gaze jerked to Paul.

“No I didn’t.” Forcing
a spoonful of curly noodles into his mouth, Paul caught a knowing look from
Wendy that fanned his irritation. “I was just thinking out loud.” The spoon
clanked against the bowl as he wiped broth from his chin with his shoulder. He
wasn’t hungry but needed to eat. It was another battle, one he didn’t have the energy
to win so he set the bowl on the coffee table and let the couch suck him back
in.

Brian cleared his
throat and squeezed Olive’s shoulder. “Can you give us a minute, sweetie?”

Smiling up at him,
she skipped into the kitchen and it broke Paul’s spirits. She was even younger
than Matt and Mike, and so innocent. The way she transitioned from
scared to death
to
playful
tugged at his heartstrings. She deserved better than this.
She deserved a normal childhood like everyone else got before this plague
knocked man back into the stone ages.

Brian waited for
her to get into the kitchen before taking a seat next to Paul. Wendy sat down
on the other side and Paul slowly stopped chewing, suddenly feeling like this
was an intervention of some kind. Maybe a way to politely get him to stop
swearing in front of the child. His eyes hopped between them before settling on
the fire.

“She’s a little
spooked as you can imagine,” Brian said, watching Olive prance around the large
island where everyone was gathered like it was just another Saturday night
dinner with family and friends, the gravity of the moment already lost on her.

Paul sighed,
wishing he could forget that easily. Wishing he could have two minutes of life
where
this
didn’t exist. A slice of
yesterday to free his troubled lungs.

“And before you
ask,” Brian said, turning to face Paul, “no we didn’t get flu-shots this season.”
His eyebrows went up. “None of us did because that’s what killed all of those
people out there.”

Paul got
tunnel-vision, getting closer to Brian without moving and swallowing the
noodles down his throat like a rock. An icy hand ripped through his chest and seized
his heart, stopping the blood pumping through his veins and arteries. The hairs
on his arms prickled as the gray-haired man’s words slowly registered. “Come
again?”

Brian’s gaze fell
to the wrinkled hands clasped in his lap and strayed from focus. “I was a
member of the Senior Executive Service charged with leading the continuing
transformation of the CDC.” The corners of his lips pulled back a little as
better days flipped through his mind in a revolving slideshow. “Well, before
the world ended,” he added, looking up to take in the impressive room. “And
this is our vacation home. I thought we’d be safe here so I flew us out from
Atlanta just before the FAA shut down the airports.”

Paul’s head felt
heavy, like his neck could no longer support its weight as his mind tried wrapping
itself around the words coming out of Brian’s mouth. There was the chance Paul
was asleep and this was all a dream because, as it turns out, PTSD is a lot
like those things out there hiding in the night. It doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t
stop. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. Turning to Wendy, she gave
him a faint nod, communicating the fact she’d already been down this road and believed
every word of it and, guess fucking what, Paul was right the entire time. It
was the flu-shots! Rage brimmed in his eyes and when he spoke, his voice came
out in a guttural growl. “Why didn’t you stop it?”

Brian met his piercing
eyes and tried to reply with something that made sense, but only a beaten-down sigh
squeezed out. “By the time we figured out what the hell was going on out there,
it was too late to stop it.” Sinking into the couch, he crossed his legs and
let a Merrell hiker dangle in the air. “One hundred and seventy-five million
vaccines were produced for this past influenza season in the U.S. market alone.
You could release one person with the lethal virus into the streets of Chicago
and by the same time next week, twenty-five percent of the town would be
contaminated. And it would only snowball from there.” He watched the flames
dance for a while, eyes straying from focus. “The virus spread so fast, we
didn’t even get a chance to name it.”