Mostly Dead (Barely Alive #3) (19 page)

The girl couldn’t be older than sixteen. The experience would age her more than she’d know… if she survived. “I think some of the trenches were hit.”

Blinking, I released her and searched the front lawn. C.J. wasn’t yelling at the people, he yelled into a walkie talkie. His mouth moved but I couldn’t… the words…

And a black cloud covered my vision, the edges wispy and incomplete. Somehow I knelt without falling, my hands unable to handle the sharp blades of grass on my skin.

I couldn’t see. Or hear. My sense of smell seemed fine, except nothing smelled quite… right? I closed my eyes and breathed deep. I’d let worry and fear control me since I’d left the house who knows how long ago. Dominic had gained more than my memories. He’d claimed access to my body again.

Paul! Heather will die if you don’t pull it together.
I yelled in my head.
Come on. You can do this! Get pissed.
But what could anger me more than the thought that Dominic invaded my mind again? An image of Heather screaming as Dominic bent her over a large boulder flashed across my mind.

That was all it took.

A roar rocked from my mouth and I arched my back. He fought me, like his nails and teeth were sunk deep inside my organs and spinal cord. Dominic didn’t want to get out.

I wanted him out more.

His voice filled my head, raced down to my toes like razors scraping the insides of my veins. “
I’m coming for you, Paul. I wonder if you’ll scream the same way Tom did when he ate his own calves.
”

Shudders spasmed my muscles and I collapsed on the ground. But my head cleared. I’d pushed him out.

He was gone. For the time being. I rolled over. My lungs struggled to bring in air, but I was still breathing.

James clomped to my side and knelt by me. “Paul, oh man, are you okay? What happened?”

I swallowed, trying to calm down. “Dominic sent zombies to the ditches. They’ve been attacked. Won’t make it.” He didn’t look right, like the colors had been bleached out of his skin and hair. He might have been hungrier than he let on, but I was a few weeks older than him. He should have another week at least. His coloring shouldn’t match mine. Not yet.

Looking over his shoulder, I realized he wasn’t the only thing losing color. The orange lighting of the house wasn’t orange anymore. I blinked hard. Again. What the hell was going on? My world dipped and danced and righted itself in black and white.

Color blind but in a way that altered the meaning. I couldn’t see any color. Zero. Everyone looked like a zombie to me. And my sense of smell wasn’t as sharp.

Did I still have hours or was I down to a collection of minutes?

People had surrounded me when I fell. My coloring would tip them off about what I was. James had to get me out of there.

He lifted me up in a fireman’s hold and hoisted me to his shoulder. I couldn’t struggle, if I wanted to.
A few jarring steps to the house and bouncing up nearly knocked me unconscious. James shoved through the front door and rested me on the couch where my mom had been not that long before.

A sigh escaped me. “Thanks.”

My little brother nodded, avoiding my eyes as he busied himself straightening my soiled shoes. The laces had come undone and he tied them in a double knot.

Placing a hand on his back, I waited until he met my gaze. “No, I’m serious, James. Thank you. And… I’m sorry. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone – especially my brother – you know?
” I stared at the angle of his jaw, so similar to my own. So much like Dad’s. I choked back a sob. “If you could know what happened to Dad, would you want to? Even if it was bad?” I could never tell him Dad had given away his existence.

James’s eyes bore into mine.
He searched me for something – maybe the truth, or maybe a discovery of the possibilities of what could have happened. But I blocked his attempts to seek out the answers. If he wanted to know, he had to reply.

The
little boy in me hoped he’d choose yes so I wouldn’t be alone in the knowledge. But the older brother in me relaxed when James narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think so. There are some things you can’t erase from your memory, you know?”

I nodded. I did know.
I knew more than I wanted to.

“So what do we do? Only a few of the trenches were hit. The rest are still defended by the groups C.J. sent out.” He
pressed me back to the couch. “Was it bad? Did you see anything?”

“
Dominic sent kids in. The people couldn’t fight them. I don’t blame them. But they’re all dead now.” Darkness hadn’t lifted in the short time I was gone. Hard to believe only minutes had passed. I felt old, like days, weeks, months had passed since I’d offered Heather up as bait. I wanted to die.

It was almost time.

~~~

The weakness didn’t linger. I was able to join James outside and help more people gather together and head into the ditches. They avoided the already attacked l
ines. Fires spread on that side of the property.

Grandma Jean’s hoses had been handed over to the young girls that James had brought with him as well as a couple of other women who C.J. wanted to watch over the few young people we had in the ranks.
The women took turns training the water spray at any fire that tried to get too close to the buildings or grass.

My brother and I went out of our way to stay on the opposite side of the house, using it as a shield to prevent us from seeing the flames.
And feeling the heat. We had other things on our mind anyway.

“I think the reactions to the vaccine are starting.” James muttered under his breath as he handed me another box of vodka bottles. We had torn up some sheet
s from the linen closet and steadily filled the necks of the bottles with the wadded up cloth. Turning the boxes over to some of the boys, we watched as they disappeared into the woods to get to the ditches that hadn’t been attacked.

Heather hadn’t shown herself anywhere.

My heart beats had slowed. I felt like I was going to sleep and chose to be more active to keep the blood running and the nerves alive.

It was all I could do not to run to my mom and sob in her arms.

“Why?” I hoped he was wrong. They didn’t need the added vulnerability the reactions would cause.

James stopped packing and held up his hands. “A few have stopped what they’re doing and just sat down on the trails to their trenches. Some have even
lain down in the ditches at the feet of others. Not all of them are reacting or doing these things, but…”

“I want you to make sure Travis and Connie keep working on the cure after tonight.” I tucked another sheet strip into a neck.

James scoffed. “Yeah, ‘cause we’re all going to be alive after Dominic attacks, right? Paul, we don’t have any real way to win. We’re like an island and we’re all set up in a situation designed for no one to make it.”

He was right. I hadn’t provided for
after
. I’d planned on there being an after, but I hadn’t done anything to make sure that would happen.

James would have to help me. I put down the bottle and snapped my fingers. “Okay, James. I’m hearing you. Here’s what we need to do. When Dominic comes up to the house, you need to make sure Mom, Grandma Jean, Travis, and Connie surround Heather and then you take the driveway and get the hell out of here.” No one was ready. They had to get their things to travel.

I patted his shoulder and stood, my bones and joints making noises like an old door. Yeah. Plain awesome. Sheesh. “I’m going to let them know they need to get stuff together, okay?”

Inside, I called out to, well, anyone. The oddest silence filled the house. Mom and Grandma Jean had just been in the kitchen, but it was empty. The stove was off. A mayonnaise jar and bottle of mustard had been left open on the counter.

I wandered into the living room. “Mom? Grandma Jean? Hey, where’d you guys go? Heather?”

But I froze. I’d never felt so cold in my life.

A knife held to Mom’s throat held me in check. A trickle of blood dripped from Grandma Jean’s left temple. She’d slumped to the side of the couch while Mom sat primly on the edge of a cushion, Dominic’s arm wrapped across the top half of her. He pressed the knife into her skin, a beaded line of blood bright gray against her pale throat.

Hell, I was trapped in a bad horror-f
lick from the nineteen-fifties and couldn’t see the colors.

Mom didn’t move. She didn’t wince. Her only sign of life was a flicker of her eyelids.

Dominic’s leer could’ve turned my head three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. “Your mom is hot, Paul. I should’ve looked for her first. The stepmom lacked something. Probably tits like these.” His hand struck fast, cupping my mother’s breast and squeezing it. I moved forward one step, growling. He held up the knife and licked the blood from its shiny tip. “I’d be careful, if I were you. I haven’t had a chance to eat. Or have fun either.”

James was outside. Heather wasn’t spending any extra
time around me – or anyone. I think she’d locked herself in her bedroom since we’d refused to actually let her help outside the house. Oh, well. Life sucked sometimes.

Connie and Travis were MIA. I hadn’t seen them since Dominic’s smooth interj
ection in their personal lives through me. The jackass!

I didn’t want any of them to show up. I had to deal with Dominic on my own. But he had Mom and Grandma Jean involved. My fuzzy mind probably couldn’t do simple math, yet there I was trying to figure out a complex problem with multiple
potential outcomes and my body might die at any moment.

The question burst from me. Even my tact deteriorated. “Do you think it hurts?”

Dominic lowered the knife an inch and jerked his head back like I’d asked him if piercing his nuts would hurt. “What?”

I walked to the mirror in the hall, still within normal speaking distance, but out of reach of his fists should he
decide to drop me. I hadn’t worked out if I could take him. Chances didn’t look good since I couldn’t even see in color anymore. “Yeah, the body dying part. Do you think it hurts when everything stops working?” The oddest laugh escaped me, like a giggle but with a masculine tone. To top it off, I snorted. “Because when Brian died, it hurt like hell. I felt every bite and tear into his body.”

And then it hit me. Dominic had to feel the pain of those he controlled. Right? “Don’t you feel it?”

Mom ignored the knife at her throat and met my gaze. She answered me, like we sat down for a conversation about how our day was. “Of course he doesn’t feel it, Paul. Mental compassion and empathy are traits that associate themselves with superior knowledge. He doesn’t seem that, well, smart.” She arched her eyebrow. “You know what I mean?”

I think I got it. But my own brain was working on little to no carbohydrates or proteins. I had reached my expiration. And the acceptance hit me like a rock.

“Dominic, I’ve said my goodbyes. Let’s take this outside so I can die away from my mom, alright?” My anger hadn’t subsided. He wouldn’t do it. The asshole had never done anything for me. But my surprise when he stood nearly knocked me to my ass.

“Alright, Paul. You look like you’re about there. I’ll come with you.” He smirked. “I’m going to have fun tearing apart this camp person by person.” He pushed my mom to land on the other couch. Sneering, he added, “I’ll be back to bite your ass, doll.” He winked.

Anger was all I would allow myself to expend energy on.

We walked side-by-side to the door, both of us eying the other. I couldn’t tell if he’d had any graying or not, since everything was gray to me. The oddest thing though. Outside, it looked like day. I hadn’t realized that the light wasn’t necessary anymore for me. When I worked outside with James making cocktails, I hadn’t noticed the lighting. I’d assumed I could see well enough because of the light from the house.

But the house lights didn’t reach the driveway where Dominic and I squared off. A person could have drawn a line from our shoulders and they’d be perfectly parallel.

He picked at the skin of his thumb.
“How do you want to do this?” A battering on the edges of my consciousness alerted me that he tried getting in. But my anger protected me. “Not that way, huh?” Dominic’s shrug irritated me. He put his finger to his temple. “Just so you know, that would have been the least painful for you, kid.”

I didn’t answer. I really didn’t have anything to say to him. He didn’t deserve my words. I watched him. He always had an Ace up his sleeve. I
had my last goal to accomplish… keeping my girl safe along with the other people in my life.

A few more minutes would be awesome.

The moon hung low in the sky. I’d never seen it so large. But he stood up there, the Man in the Moon, cheering me on. I hoped. The people had gone to their trenches except for those that C.J. had wanted to keep by the house for safety.

“You came alone, huh? That’s extremely cocky, Dominic.” I didn’t have to raise my voice. Feet separated us. Snaps and crackles from the fire consuming the woods behind me underscored the situation.