Gods of the Dead (Rising Book 1) (13 page)

“What do you think?” Asher asks me quietly.

“Good mix,” I answer with a shrug. “Most of the guard is out here. That’s promising. Few farmers. One doc, couple nurses.”

“I count three gearheads.”

I nod my head slowly in agreement but then I pause. My eyes connect with a broken mirror, two dark green pools full of anxiety.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” I grumble.

“What’s up?”

I nod toward Lucio. “My old man. Can’t believe that coward left.”

“He left because you did. He’ll never stop following you.”

“Not until he’s dead,” I reply darkly, but the words feel hollow and faint.

“Rest of the group looks solid,” Asher comments.

He’s right. They all look defiant and angry but pretty lost too. They didn’t want to stay but they have no idea what to do now.

“Lot a man could do with this crowd,” I muse.

“Yep.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you need to stop frontin’,” he says seriously.

“If I do it, are you with me?”

“More than I’m with anyone else, yeah.”

“That’s touching.”

He grins. “That’s the wild, baby.”

Erik, a member of the guard, raises his hands to get people’s attention. “Everyone, listen up!”

“You better hurry and take control before someone else does,” Asher’s voice rumbles anxiously.

I don’t respond. I don’t think. I step forward and push through the crowd without a word or a glance in anyone’s direction. Heads turn away from Erik, eyes follow me, but I don’t meet them. Instead I stride purposefully down the sidewalk, my knife in my belt and my hands thrust casually into my pockets. They fall silent as I pass them, waiting for me to speak, but I don’t say a word. I just walk.

“Where are you going?” Erik calls after me.

“The Underground.”

“The fighting arena?” a nurse with graying red hair asks in disgust. I recognize her as the nurse who questioned Daniel in the stadium. “You want us to live in that cave?”

I turn to face her. “I’m not telling you to do anything, but that’s where I’m going for now. There are only a few hours of daylight left and I don’t want to be caught on the street at night. The theater is cleared of infected and it’s securable.”

“Do you think it’s smart to stay that close to the stadiums?” Erik challenges. “They weren’t feeling violent when they were recruiting but now that we’re out don’t you think we should put some distance between us and them?”

“Eventually, yeah. But I’m not doing it tonight. I’m going to use what little sunlight we have getting supplies. Food and water. Blankets. Firewood.”

“Candles,” the nurse adds. “Lanterns if we can find them.”

“I have torches inside, along with a med kit and enough weapons to arm every member of the guard standing on this sidewalk.” I address the entire crowd for the first time but my voice remains low. Conversational. “If you’ve got a better plan I’d love to hear it, but for now this is what I have sorted out. Join me or don’t but whatever you do, get inside before the sun sets.”

I turn my back on them again, walking forward slowly. My heart is in my throat as I get closer to the entrance of the theater. Will they follow me? Will any of them, even Asher, follow me? Or will they go with Erik and run away as fast as they can? Will any of them survive if they do?

Blood pounding in my ears, I take hold of the handle on the front door to the theater and yank it open, casting a quick glance to the side to see who’s still milling around.

None of them. Not a single soul.

Every last one of them is following me to the theater door.

Chapter Fourteen

Trent

“How do you know how to do that?” Ryan asks me.

I look up from the trap I’m building to find him watching me. He’s lying on his side, his head propped up on my pack like a pillow, and his eyes are glued to my hands. He’s been in that position almost exclusively for two days now. Kevin and I have been happy just to see him awake and eating. We haven’t pushed him on standing up and walking around yet. The wobble to his walk when he goes to the backside of the tree to pee is enough to tell us he’s not ready for long distances.

The angry attitude he took when I insisted Kevin look at the color of his urine stream to see if he’s properly hydrated again told us he’ll get there soon.

“My dad taught me,” I explain about the trap.

“Was he a big hunter?”

“Not a big hunter, no. He didn’t do it for sport. Only when we had to.”

“Why’d you have to?”

“So we could eat.”

Ryan’s brow creases. “Seems like it’d be easier to go to the store.”

I smile. “You only think that because you didn’t see our truck.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Everything.”

“Do you miss it?”

“No,” I chuckle, carefully wrapping a pliable piece of sapling around a stick, weaving it into the body of the trap. “It was a beater that barely ran. There’s nothing to miss about it.”

He frowns. “Not the truck. I meant hunting. With your dad.”

The sapling snaps. I stare down at it, stunned. It broke at the end, whipping around and striking against my palm. An angry red welt is forming across the skin and the sting makes my throat constrict, a hiss escaping my lips.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asks, trying to sit up.

“No.”

“Kevin!”

I look up at Ryan, surprised. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting help,” he replies excitedly. He’s looking at my hand with a pained expression. “Kevin can help.”

“No, Ryan, I don’t need help.”

“You’re hurt!”

“I’m fine.”

“You said you’re not.”

“Calm down. I was being literal.”

He shakes his head. “What does that mean?”

I clench my hand, holding onto the pain. “It means I’m hurt so I’m not okay, but it doesn’t mean I need help. I can take care of it myself.”

“What happened?” Kevin asks breathlessly. His eyes are round. They dart between Ryan and I, probably looking for signs of blood. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I assure him. “I’m fine.”

“Not literally,” Ryan argues.

Kevin looks down at him, confused. “Seriously, what’s happening? Does anyone actually need me or can I finish going to the bathroom, because it was kind of urgent.”

“He hurt his hand. Look at it.”

I hold it up for Kevin to see. A welt has started to form, straight and thin and peppered with tiny pinpricks of blood. “It’s nothing. Really.”

Kevin sighs, kneeling down by his brother. “Ry, he’s fine.”

“He said he’s not.”

“He just said he is.”

“But before, he—“

“Buddy,” Kevin reaches for Ryan’s shoulder, giving him an encouraging smile, “it’s okay. He’s not gonna turn. He’s not broken. He’s not even bleeding.”

“I am a little,” I correct.

Kevin casts me an annoyed glance. I take it as my hint to keep quiet.

I leave the trap and take up my small medicine kit, putting ten paces between myself and the brothers. As much as it smarts, my palm genuinely is going to be fine in few days, but I have a rule – no open wounds around the dead. I’ll have to wrap it until it heals.

“Are you really bleeding?” Kevin asks quietly.

Over his shoulder I can see Ryan lying on his back, his eyes closed. “Not much,” I reply.

“You need help covering it?”

“No. Thanks.” I pull out a small stretch of cloth from the kit and start to unroll it. “I’m sorry about your brother. I’m not good at talking to people.”

“You’re out of practice. I get it.”

“I wasn’t good to begin with.”

Kevin steps closer, lowering his voice so Ryan can’t hear. “Dude, don’t worry about it. You’re fine. He’s just really sensitive to stuff like that. Danger and pain. People getting sick. He was only seven when the Fever showed up in Portland and I don’t think he remembers as much as he should from before. All of his normal has been replaced by zombies and being scared all the time.”

“It’s been four years since the first outbreak,” I remind him. “Zombies and being scared is what’s
normal now.”

He looks back at Ryan, his face falling dark. “Yeah, I guess it is.” He watches him for a moment before stuffing his hands in his pockets and sighing. “I need to get him out of the woods. He’ll feel safer inside. An old house or something. Anywhere that he can lock a door.”

“Houses mean cities.”

“Yeah, I know, but it means people too.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

Kevin laughs. “It is.”

“The Fever spread the fastest in the cities,” I argue seriously. “You’re from Portland. You should know that better than anybody.”

His smile fades but he nods in agreement. “Yeah, I do. But it’s been a long time. The cities won’t be the way they used to be.”

“They could be worse.”

“They could be better, and I have to risk it either way. I’ve gotta get Ry around more people.”

“Why?”

“In case I die,” he answers bluntly. “He won’t make it alone out in the woods. If he’s with more people he’ll have a chance. How long do you think until he can walk?”

“You mean farther than five feet?”

“Preferably, yeah.”

“I’d give him a week to slowly build up his strength again. I wouldn’t walk him anywhere until his headaches have stopped.”

“Alright. A week it is. Then we set out.”

“Where are you going to go?”

He looks back at me, a crooked, amused grin on his face. “We’re going to Seattle, man.”

***

The decision to go with them is not mine to make. It was already decided somewhere between my tree and the ground when I first leapt down to talk to them. It’s never a topic that’s discussed. It’s a fact that simply is. When Ryan is finally strong enough to hike, we pack up my gear and go. We divide up everything between the three of us, Kevin and I careful to give Ryan the least of it, but even so I’m surprised when I lift my portion onto my back.

The load is lighter than it’s ever been.

We walk for over a week. If it were only me I would walk all day until I was too tired to keep going. Until I had to sleep. Then I’d get up and do it all again. Ryan is still weak, though, and we make several stops along the way to Seattle. We have to take time to hunt because I won’t go inside the buildings in the cities we pass through. I grudgingly walk the outer rim of each one and my body is on edge the entire time. Cities along the coast are small but they’re everything I’ve told myself to avoid. Everything my dad warned me against.

“What is that?” Kevin asks me as we pass through an abandoned residential area.

I glance around, unsure what he’s referring to. “What is what?”

“That thing you keep saying.”

“I was talking?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “You didn’t know? You do it a lot. I thought it was on purpose.”

It dawns on me what I must have been saying. I shrug. “It used to be.”

“What is it?”

“Advice my dad gave me before… from before,” I finish awkwardly. “Go to the woods. Stay clear of people.”

“Hide with the animals,” Ryan recites drolly.

I smile at him. “I really must say it a lot.”

He smiles in return. “Only when you first wake up. And when you go to sleep.”

“When you clean a kill,” Kevin adds.

“When you tie your shoes.”

“When you take a sh—“

Kevin’s words are drowned out by the sound of an engine roaring. It’s so foreign to me that it stops my heart for a beat. I drop to a crouch, into a fighting stance, as my eyes survey the area. I can’t see it but I can definitely hear it nearby. It reminds me of the boat on the beach that I heard and felt before my eyes could find it, and I feel weak in my stomach at the thought.

“Where is it?” I ask them. “Do you see it?”

Kevin shakes his head tersely, his eyes searching the area as well. “No. But it’s close. Let’s get inside.”

Ryan leads the way. At his brother’s words he immediately takes off at a run for the nearest house. All of the windows on the bottom floor are boarded up tight, exactly like the rest of the homes up and down the block. Scratch marks and black blood smears across the honey colored surface tells me why.

Ryan leaps up onto the peeling white front porch and tries the door handle, but it won’t open. Kevin picks up the doormat and throws it aside. He kicks over a potted plant and examines the bottom, then curses when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. He lets it roll away until it connects with a chipped blue dog dish that reads ‘Baxter’ on the side.

Ryan looks up and down the street anxiously. “Maybe we should try a different house.”

The roar of the engine is getting louder.

“Back door,” I tell them.

I leap over the railing on the porch and land nimbly on the grass below. The boys follow me as I sprint down the side of the house to the backyard. There’s no fence and nothing to hide behind and the sound of the engine is getting closer all the time. Whatever it is, it’s not a large car. It’s not a truck or an SUV. The whine of the engine says something sporty and small. And fast.

I feel better when we reach the back of the house and it shields us from the street, but I’d feel better still if we were inside. I’d feel even better if we were in the woods.

Just as I hoped, the back door has a dog door in it. I poke my head inside, my shoulders too wide to make it through entirely, but I’m able to check the interior. It’s empty. Dark, musty, a little rank, but no zombies or people in the small kitchen that the door opens into.

I retreat, running my hand through my long hair to remove it from my face. “It’s clear. Ryan can make it through and unlock the door for us.”

Kevin doesn’t like that plan. His body language is loud and clear, and what it says is that he doesn’t like making his brother our scout. He’s opening his mouth to protest when we run out of time.

Tires squeal at the end of the block as the engine revs out. Rubber grips and grapples until it finally finds purchase again, launching the vehicle forward down the street. It’s heading right for us.

Kevin gets down low and looks around the corner of the house. He jerks back just as the car races past us to the other end of the block and the squeal of the tires takes over again.

“It’s a Porsche,” he says quietly.

I shrug, not sure what I’m supposed to do with that information.

He scowls at me. “You don’t know what that is?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“You spent twenty minutes yesterday telling me the history of doorknobs and you don’t know what a Porsche is?”

“They weren’t invented until 1878,” I remind him fervently. “It’s one of the most useful innovations of the last two hundred years.”

“So what? Do you want me to build a statue for them? Throw a parade?”

“Why would I want that?”

“I have no idea, man. I’m just trying to figure out how to get you to lay off about doorknobs.”

“Have you tried turning it?” Ryan asks.

We both look at him, blank faced.

The roar of the engine is coming back this way.

“Turn the knob,” Ryan says, pointing to the back door.

Kevin reaches up and turns it. The door swing open easily.

“You see?” I ask with a smug smile. “Innovation.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kevin mutters, stepping past me inside the house.

It’s dark inside with the windows covered. The only light is coming in from the open door behind us. Kevin signals for Ryan to wait there, to watch the exit, but Ryan’s annoyed expression says he gets that he’s being left behind to protect him. He doesn’t budge, though.

Kevin and I sweep the house slowly with our weapons raised. Once we’re out of the kitchen the only light we have to see with is a faint glow coming in down the stair case. The upper windows are uncovered and allow some measure of light. It’s barely enough, but we’re able to clear the bottom floor. Not a sign of life or death down here.

Kevin goes to step up onto the stairs, but I cut him off with a pointed look and a shake of my head. He frowns at me until I nod toward the kitchen. Toward Ryan.

He immediately backs off.

Upstairs the windows are open, the salty sea air making its way inside from the distant sea, but there’s something else. A heavier smell. Rancid and sweet. The farther down the hall I get, the stronger the smell gets until finally I know I’ve found it. Last door on the left. The only one that’s closed.