Fight (NOLA Zombie Book 2) (18 page)

“Fuck you!” She went to hit me. I saw her hand draw back. Blake might have once loved this woman. How? I have no idea, but I had no feelings for her. There was no way she was laying a hand on me. Her slap was easy to dodge since I saw it coming a mile away.
 
When she went for a second one, I couldn’t help myself, I threw my own, but it wasn’t a slap.
Slapping is for bitches.
I closed my fist. She fell like a tree and was out like a light,
oops
.

“Can someone please get Isaiah? Clara might need that Valium now.” I heard a few snickers, but others were frowning, upset with the unfortunate situation. Aggressive actions, I had broken my own rule, but she had come at me first.
 

Clara still hadn’t stirred by the time Isaiah showed up and carted her off. In that time, most of the truck had been unloaded and Zach had showed up to catch the last part of the drama.

“What the fuck, Blake? I leave for two minutes, fights ensue, Alexis punches your ex-wife!” Zach’s words were accusing, but he was trying to hide a smile. He wasn’t fooling me.

“I don’t even know what the fuck that was about.” Blake ran his hand over his face frustrated. “She just kept going on and on about how we were meant to be together because she was meant to be in charge of places like this, weird fucked up things. Then she said she moved into my office and wasn’t going to leave. She went so far as to tell me that she was going to show me how good a wife she was. I’m assuming she had some kind of seduction thing planned, so I told her she could have the office because I was moving in with you guys.”

“You told her what?” I gaped.

“Yeah, look, it just popped out. I didn’t want to face it. She’s like a flea that keeps jumping on you and I don’t expect anything. Look, I’ll take the spare bedroom. You got plenty of room, right?”

“Yeah, we do, Blake. But, I…” I looked at Zach. I was worried about his reaction.

“Blake, it’s fine, you belong with us,” Zach said quietly. I didn’t know how to take that.
What was he saying? That we belonged together as a group or we belonged together in a relationship? This love drama and angst could really fuck with a girl, complications. Fuck me.

TWENTY-NINE

Z’s Ain’t So Bad

Blake took my old room on the second floor since I had officially moved into the first floor bedroom with Zach. There were only sporadic periods of awkwardness as we moved about the house trying not to make eye contact or bring up what happened the night before. I had wanted nothing more than to jump into bed with Zach and reassure him that I wanted him desperately, but with Blake around, I just couldn’t break away.
 

We all ended up starting a fire in the big great room fireplace and huddling around it until we all fell asleep on the sofa. It wasn’t romantic, we were just worn out. It had been a very intense few days.
 

We awoke the next day with sore necks and backs and quickly got dressed and hurried to the barracks. The supply team would have left first thing and we wanted to stick by the radio just in case.
 

There was no word all morning, but by noon we heard back that they had loaded up the rig and were headed inn our direction. We had told them to just take one of the already loaded rigs that we had scouted the day before and we would sort it out when they got here. From what we could tell, it was loaded with a wide variety of items you would see on any drug store counter, non-perishable food, over-the-counter drugs, makeup and some clothing. We would hopefully use most of it.
 

Vance Ito was on forward patrol alone on the motorcycle, and he was checking in every fifteen minutes with both the rig and base. After an hour into the ride back, he radioed in something that had us all tense.
 

“I’m about to get to the Rigolets and there is something blocking the road. It’s an obvious road block. I don’t think they spotted me, but I see a few milling about in the trees at the side of the road. It’s not at the same spot they shot at you from last time though. Do you want me to engage?”

“Negative, Ito, turn around and hook up with the team. Tell them to go around. Turn off at 190 and come up I-10, like we talked about yesterday,” Zach radioed back.

“Fuck,” Zach cursed when he signed off. “I don’t know what those fucking idiots are doing, but it’s really messing with our system.
 

“James,” Ito’s voice came over the radio rushed. “I’m being followed. They spotted me.”
 

“Ito, don’t meet up with the rig. I don’t want them to see our supplies. You’re on a bike. You can outrun anything. We’ll meet up near the Fort Pike area. Just power through the road block.”

“Ten four.”

“Come on, let’s get moving. Where’s Marquez?” Zach called.

“Here,” He came around the corner from the rec room.
 

“Grab Hank and Justin and get one of the bigger SUVs, we’ll meet you outside.” Marquez nodded once and ran off to grab the others.

“I think the M6’s and a few shotguns should do.” Blake grabbed the guns from the locker and started handing them out. “Alexis, I think you should stay here and run lookout for the rig.”

“Fuck no. I’m going with y’all. The rig has Jimmy, Cole, Baby and Romeo. They’ll make it back.”

“Let her come, Blake, she’s a good shot,” Zach said, but didn’t look happy about it. Cavemen.
 

“Fine, let’s get moving,” Blake scowled.

Marquez was waiting outside with the SUV. We handed him the guns and Zach went and got a second SUV. We jumped in when he pulled up and tore off toward the fort.
 

Right before we got to the bridge, we parked the SUVs across the road with space enough for Ito to drive through.
 
I heard the scream of the engine before we saw him. He was barreling over the bridge at a fast clip. Behind him I could make out another shape coming fast. It must be his pursuers.

Ito slowed and steered the bike in between the two SUVs. He maneuvered into a quick turn and stopped the bike, kicking the stand down and jumping off. He ran for cover behind the SUV, crouching down near Zach and awaiting orders.

Zach threw him a shotgun and we all lined up along the side of
 
the open doors of the SUV, the vehicles blocking our bodies from gunfire. The pursuing truck came in fast and skidded to a halt in front of us. There was nowhere for them to go. They could go forward and try to ram us or they would have to turn around and flee the same way they came.

A man stuck his hands out of the window of the truck and the door slowly opened.

“We don’t want no trouble,” he called as he revealed himself. He was a man in his early forties with long salt and pepper hair, scraggly around his face. He held his hands out to the side of him to show he wasn’t armed or at least that he wasn’t carrying anything in his hands.

“Then why were you pursuing my man?” Zach called in a very authoritative voice.

“He’s coming through our territory. We don’t play kindly with people messing about on our land.” He looked over and another man pushed himself out of the truck. He was larger, but not in an impressive way. He was overweight, and much younger. He looked to be barely thirty. He was disheveled and his clothes were stained and torn in places. These people weren’t taking care of themselves well.

“What territory is that?”

“Slidell, up there by Pearl River,” he called. He still had his hands out to the side, but his fingers kept twitching.

“There is nothing that interests us in your area. My men were just passing through.”

“Well, I would think that as a courtesy they might stop and share whatever y’all been hauling around up there. We seen y’all, whatever you’re grabbing. You got trucks and big ass SUVs. We don’t even have gas enough to power one truck much less trucks.”

“So, you’re saying you were chasing down my man on a motorcycle so he could share what he had with you?” Zach called. I could hear the frustration in his voice.

“Yeah, that,” the guy chuckled.
 

“Well, you caught up to him, and as you can see, the only thing he’s got is backup. So why don’t
y’all
turn around and go back to Pearl River.” He emphasized the word “y’all” in a very condescending manner.

“Now that ain’t very nice of y’all pointing guns at us. You seem like y’all got your shit together. Me and Henry here, we got skills. We could be an asset.”

“Yeah, I know how to shoot and other things,” the Henry in question leered.
Where did scum like this come from? Were they just hanging around waiting for an apocalypse so they could run wild?

“We don’t have any room, gentlemen, sorry. But now it’s time for you two to get back in your truck and turn around. You are outnumbered and outgunned. There is nothing for you here.”

“That’s just fucked up,” Henry called.

“You have to the count of three to get back in your truck,” Blake called.
 

“Don’t come back through our parts again, you hear!” the unnamed man called as he got behind the wheel. “You’re gonna have to pay the fucking toll! And you ain’t gonna like it!”

“One…two,” Blake hollered. The peel of tires rang out and they actually backed up into the rail of the bridge in their rush to get back to the hole they crawled out of.

We waited until we couldn’t see their vehicle before we packed up and headed home.
 

“I have a feeling this won’t be the last time we see those scumbags,” Blake said under his breath as we pulled away.
 

“I don’t even want to think about that,” I said grimly. The two men looked like your common dumb scum, but it was never good to underestimate desperate people.
 

“Let’s split up, all of us take different routes back to the base just to be cautious,” Zach ordered. He was rigid, in charge, the soldier at the surface. It was glorious, but scary as hell. I thought zombies were the big baddies out there, but suddenly a corpse seemed like child’s play.

THIRTY

The Gift That Keeps Giving

We huddled in the meeting room on the second floor of the barracks, our faces grim, the story still resonating through everyone’s minds. There were people out there and they were bad people. If they saw us, they would probably want to do us harm. For some of us, mainly the group that came in with Blake, they didn’t look surprised. Others, like Lani, had experienced it firsthand and were staring wide-eyed as Zach informed everyone about the Pearl River boys.
 

“So we got ‘em on both sides of us, rednecks in Pearl River and biker gangs in Lakeview, fuck,” Duke hissed.
 

“Yeah, it’s not an optimal situation. We’ll have to increase our awareness, double up on patrols, and if we go out, we’ll make sure that we are ready for anything.” Blake sighed. He had the radio in his hand waiting for any word from the rig. As if on cue, a call burst through.

“Base, come in base, this is Peters, we’re approaching the Isles, ETA, ten minutes.”

“Good to hear your voice, Cole,” Blake called. “We’ll be waiting, ten four.”
 

“Roger, Peters out.”
 

The room burst out in exclamations of excitement. They had made it. They had made it with a shit-ton of supplies.
 

Everyone rushed out of the barracks and whooped when they saw the lights of the rig turn onto the causeway. Duke and Justin ran to the gates to open it as the truck came roaring into the camp amongst cheers and applause.

Baby jumped out of the cab, a big smile on her face. “Well, so good to see y’all too!” she laughed as Justin gave her a hug and she pushed him off trying to force a scowl, but it wasn’t working.

Cole Peters’ wife, Grace, was rushing to her husband as he exited the passenger side and threw her arms around him. I smiled at their reunion. She had been so worried when we came back with only Vance Ito.
 

“You have to see what we got!” Jimmy said as he and Marquez jumped out of the driver’s side with similar smiles on their faces.

“Nuts, a boat-load of nuts!” Marquez laughed. “Like we need to add that to our crazy little compound.”
 

“And canned soups, cereals, boxed macaroni, you name it this truck was full of it, toys for the kids, clothes, t-shirts and a ton of pajama pants.” Jimmy clapped Marquez on the back. “Enough food to last months.”

“It was like the gift that kept on giving when we opened that shit up, right Jimmy?” Martinez joked.

“Like one of those little Russian dolls, and the gift that keeps on giving is a venereal disease, you fool,” Jimmy laughed.
 

“Nah, really, we just kept opening boxes and more and more good shit kept popping out at us.”
 

“Y’all did good,” Zach beamed at his men.
 

“Yeah, we did,” Baby called. “And I think it’s about time we got a raise.”

While a bunch of us unloaded the truck, a few others broke off with Bubba and went to the kitchen making cryptic statements about having some kind of celebratory feast. Everyone had a smile on their face as we opened box after box of goods. One treasure after another was revealed the deeper we got. Marquez was right. There were tons of canned soups, ravioli, and other packaged meat products, pasta, nuts and even a very large supply of protein bars, which were like gold in this world.

THIRTY-ONE

We Made It

When we were finally done unloading, all of us were sweaty, but still in good humor. This score meant another six months of survival and time enough to get the crops planted. It meant life. It meant we could actually live instead of survive.
 

Blake, Zach, and I, were laughing about something Marquez was going on and on about when we pushed through the doors of the cafeteria. The festivities were already in full swing and we stopped and gaped at now very jovial group.
 

Kirk had pulled out his guitar and was tuning it up in the corner, getting ready to add some music to mix. Grace was walking around with a pitcher of what I hoped was an alcoholic beverage and she came straight to us, pouring us each a glass of what she called Zombie Juice.
I wasn’t going to ask.