Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (23 page)

Stated like that, I had to agree with Martinez, even if that just opened a different kind of emotional wormhole.

“I guess.”

“You guess?” he teased. “Why, did he make you swear to help him however possible before he made you come?”

I really didn’t know if I was comfortable talking to anyone about this, let alone a guy I’d barely known for three weeks and whose boyfriend—or fuckbuddy or whatever Smith had been—I’d killed.

“Nah. Talking wasn’t really a big part of it,” I admitted, and suddenly I felt the dire need to share the entire story with him. Maybe hashing it all out would help me make sense of it. “We met in a park I used to go to after work sometimes. Obviously that wasn’t coincidence. He was there, jogging, with a dog that he’d likely borrowed from someone because I’ve never heard or seen anything of that dog ever again,” I recounted, realization dawning on me. “Anyway, he asked me out for coffee, and I don’t even know why I accepted, but half an hour later we were screwing our brains out in the alley behind the coffee shop.”

Martinez did an appropriate spit-take that made me grin.

“And there I thought you were both responsible adults.”

“We used protection,” I offered, just a tad defensive, but still more or less amused. “And things kind of developed from there. He would call to see if I could get away from work early a few days later. When one of my experiments went horribly awry and I suddenly had some free time on my hands, I asked him if he could clear his schedule. We met in some dingy motel out on the highway, or went at it like horny teenagers in the back of his car. And then one day he texts me, asking if I’m still at work, ragging on me for of course doing overtime on a Friday afternoon when half the city is home sick, and suddenly he turns up in the building when I’m taking a break to get some coffee… and the rest is history.”

Martinez listened with a morbid kind of fascination, and when I fell silent again, he shook his head.

“As I said, I might be wrong, but that sounds like plain old, weird-as-hell, instant chemistry to me.”

“But why—“ I started, frustration clogging my throat.

“He’s protecting you,” Martinez supplied when it became evident that I wasn’t going to continue. That made me look at him sharply.

“Come again?”

Martinez shrugged. “Remember what I just told you? The story about Captain Reynolds?”

“My memory’s not that bad, yet,” I griped.

“It’s practically the same thing,” he explained. “If he was treating you as his girlfriend, or whatever, everyone would see you like that, with ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ as the common denominator. But without that, we all have to form our own opinion of you, based on how you behave. You never whine, you carry your own. You even do your best to learn how to catch up on the decades of combat experience that we all share between us. You eat cat food even when it clearly disgusts you, at least at first. I’ve never been attracted to a woman in my entire life, but I’m confident to say that if I were, I’d still have a hard time even seeing you as one right now.”

“Gee, exactly the vote of confidence any girl likes to hear,” I interjected.

“Unless you’re trying not to be the camp whore,” he shot back. At my pointed look, he gave a noncommittal grunt. “Seriously, I’m not much more comfortable with what is going on over there right now than you are. And neither are most of the other guys. Up until those four attached themselves to us, we had a pretty sweet thing going. Sure, those two college kids are kind of a dead weight, but you? You’re simply part of our group. A dependable cog that does exactly what everyone expects of her, and usually pretty smoothly so. We’ve all served with women, and we all know the potential drama that can start up if things get weird, but as long as you’re acting completely unapproachable, you’re just…” He paused, and his grin dipped toward shit-eating bright. “One of the guys, pretty much. Except for the tampons. But, seriously, they wouldn’t dare rag you about that if they’d consider you anything but one of us.”

I’d more or less guessed most of that already—it just made sense from how the last weeks had been between us all. But hearing Martinez spell it out for me again kind of took the sting out of my own hurt feelings.

“So, let me get this straight. I’m on a never ending dry spell now to keep the peace so most of you don’t kill each other of testosterone poisoning?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Martinez agreed, but chuckled when he caught my glare. “But even with a non-fraternization order in the army, people always found a way to screw with each other. And we’re not in the army now, anymore. My guess is that he’s simply waiting until you’ve established yourself as enough of a presence that, whatever you do, their view of you won’t change anymore. Just take Zilinsky. I doubt that anyone would think any less of her if she’d run through camp naked, dancing around the fire. I doubt anyone would even dare catcall her.”

The very idea of the Ice Queen doing that gave me the creeps.

“Yeah, no shit. I think even Nate treads carefully around her when she’s in a bad mood, and I’m sure that he knows that she’s a hundred percent loyal to him.”

“Case in point,” Martinez offered.

I thought a little more about that, but there really wasn’t anything else to add. His arguments made me feel vaguely stupid for all the bitching I’d done, if only to myself.

“Was I really glaring that obviously?” I asked, a little self-conscious.

“You glare at anyone when you’re angry,” he said, laughing. “Exactly like that. I’d say it’s cute, but you are learning how to use that shotgun really well, and I’m way too fond of my balls to annoy you too much.”

“Gee, thanks,” I chuffed, but already felt more reassured. “Damn. If I’d known that we’re not only heading into the zombie apocalypse but into the dry spell of my adult life, I would have taken a lot longer in that decontamination shower.”

The look Martinez gave me was only describable as weird.

“What shower?”

“Well, technically not the decontamination shower, because I was alone in there. But the one for outside of the hot zone of the labs. Just before we ran into you and all the zombies you let in because you thought it was such a brilliant idea to make new holes into an otherwise completely sealed-off building.” Biting my lip, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory, although it wasn’t exactly a joyous one. “Then again, if we had taken more time we likely would have missed the deadline to still make it out of the building and the explosions would have shredded us into tiny, little bits. Either way I’m damned.”

Martinez was still staring at me, transfixed.

“You seriously had sex after you were in that BSL-4 lab where you’d just planted enough explosives to bring down the entire building?”

I shrugged, nodding. “And after I destroyed what was left of the virus strains and that supposed vaccine that you were there to fetch. With one of the gloves of my suit torn, so it was more or less life-affirming, I’m-not-sure-I-won’t-die-horribly-now sex.”

“Okay. And you still think he was only charming your pants off because why exactly again?”

“Just shut up,” I advised.

“Yes, ma’am,” came his reply that made me roll my eyes at him, but also left me with a lingering smile. Sometimes, all you really need is a friend. And even considering that whole debacle with Smith, I had a feeling that Martinez was quickly becoming one of the really tight ones.

An hour and three parameter circuits later, I dropped back into the grass next to my pack, propped my shotgun up where I could easily reach it, and dug out—oh joy—another can of cat food. I was happy to realize that just talking to Martinez had helped alleviate that vibe of strangeness that had almost driven me insane before. Not completely, because Bates was giving me weird looks, but after a couple of minutes I realized that they were apprehensive rather than appreciative. Was he actually afraid I’d tear him a new one just because he’d taken our newest group member’s offer to “help” however she could?

And judging from the wide berth everyone gave the family, I wasn’t the only one reluctant to view them as part of “us.” It probably made me a real bitch, but I felt rather vindicated by that.

During our circuits, the raiding party had returned, clearly hitting pay dirt this fine, balmy evening. The moment my ass hit the ground, Cho walked over to me and dropped a shotgun into my lap that was somewhat dissimilar from mine.

“Remington, semi-auto,” he explained. “And here’s some more ammo—buckshot and slugs. You can use it for both guns, whichever works better for you.” He consequently sat down next to me and helped me field-strip both guns, pointing out the differences, or where I might even scavenge parts from one for the other if one broke down eventually and we didn’t find another backup. Hungry and still emotionally frazzled, I would have preferred a shorter lecture, but considering Cho was clearly putting an effort into it, the least I owed him was my attention. He left me with the advice to take it easy with the semi-auto at first as it supposedly had a “donkey kick” for a recoil.

With the camp all set up and the guards out and about, I felt moderately secure—or at least secure enough to take off the hat and peel off my jacket. I was again wearing the pony tee, clearly the wrong choice for the weather. It was soaked through and through and plastered to my skin in all the wrong places, but at least the heat took care that nothing could pebble up to peak through my sports bra and shirt. Eyeing my newly acquired boonie hat critically, I made the mistake of inhaling a little too closely to the damp material.

“What the fuck do you eat that your sweat stinks like a gas station restroom?” I called out to Bates, pushing the hat away with disgust. He grinned at me sheepishly, raising a similar can to the one sitting right on top of my pack.

“With extra mouse flavor,” he recited. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“You’re disgusting,” I groaned, looking over to Andrej. “Do we still have any bleach left? Because I doubt that I’ll get this out with water and soap only.”

“Bleach is just for zombie goo,” Andrej objected. “Your orders, remember?”

I did remember, but this certainly called for special measures.

“I want my cap back,” I demanded from Bates. “Without the dead and decomposed animal stench.”

He snorted and whipped my trusty black cap into the air like a frisbee, and—surprisingly enough—it landed close to my knee so I could fetch it. I made as if to do the same with his hat, but Bates shook his head. “Keep it. You never know when you’ll need it again.” That didn’t sound very reassuring, but he kind of had a point.

With that settled, all there was for me to do was return to my “feast,” but Madeline’s startled gasp made me pause and look at her.

“You’re a woman,” she offered, clearly perplexed.

Snorting, I briefly glanced down at my chest. “What gave it away, the tits or the hair?” She looked clearly appalled by my question—or likely my lack of more feminine phrasing, or whatever—and chose not to dignify that with a reply.

Opening the can, I glared at the contents for a moment, and not for the first time wondered if I should bother with getting a fork or spoon out of my pack to pretend like I was actually enjoying a civilized meal. But by then my stomach was growling enough to make Burns look up from where he sat roughly across from me in our loose circle, and none of the guys ever bothered.
 

“Oh my God! Are you seriously going to eat that?”

Looking up from the can to Madeline’s pinched face, I couldn’t help but crack a smile as I skimmed over the script on the side of the can.

“Strengthens the immune system, and promotes healthy skin. A feast for champions.” And because she wasn’t horrified enough, I scooped out a dollop with my fingers and licked it right off. It really wasn’t as bad as it smelled.

“Don’t forget about maintaining urinary tract health,” Bates continued, ever the fountain of wisdom. Whoever’d designed the packaging of that cat food actually deserved to die a horrible death by zombie plague.

“Yeah, not really concerned about that,” I offered. “I don’t have a dick, and I don’t stick it anywhere it might get in contact with anything that makes my nonexistent balls itch and burn.”
 

Judging from the chagrined look on Bates’s face, that hit landed exactly where it was supposed to—and not just with him. But at least I got to enjoy my dinner for champions without any more stupid comments.

Chapter 16

The issues with the Chambers family—Madeline, Erica, Albert, and Peter—might have started that first evening, but they hit us in full swing the next morning. Because they’d only brought two small backpacks between them, they pretty much owned the clothes on their backs… and not much else. No more food than to last them a day. No sleeping bags. No backup of anything, let alone the bare survival essentials. For a while, I’d been afraid that the guys from the slope would come after us to bring back their escaped prize, but, seriously? Ten hours later I was half convinced that they’d let them go without even making a fuss.
 

Pia had set them up with one of our two tents for that first night, likely so they wouldn’t freeze to death. While even the mornings were humid and hot already, the nights still cooled down; it might be comfortable camping under the stars snuggled in a sleeping bag—certainly not cold enough to warrant spooning each other for warmth, which Burns gallantly offered, completely out of the blue, after me freezing my ass off for the first, oh, three weeks. Giving them the tent wasn’t really a concession for us; so far, no one had expressed any interest in using it. The idea of being warmer and out of the elements might sound appealing. The possibility of being trapped in a tent while a zombie mob came pouring into the camp? Not so much. I’d wondered for a while now why we didn’t just ditch the tents completely, but like a few other things, we’d hung onto them. Considering the general and combined skills of the people in our group, it wouldn’t have surprised me if someone had built a gyrocopter or something from the parts. And in a world where manufacturing was very likely a thing of the past, it was hard to leave anything behind that could—even just technically—be useful one day.