Surge (54 page)

Kelly balls her hands into fists and stalks out with a, “You’ll all be sorry,” thrown over her shoulder like the psychotic bitch that she is.

<~~~<~~~
~~~>~~~>

Once Kelly storms out of the house with a slam of the door, Chelsea darts her eyes around the room. She’s never had to make a decision on her own, until now, and I hope she makes the right one. She doesn’t. Casting a pleading look at Marissa, who ignores it, Chelsea turns tail and runs after the current master pulling her strings.

“Good riddance,” Leonard says with a wave of dismissal at the door. “Drain of supplies and a thorn in my backside.” That earns a few chuckles, but some people are still tense.

“Are you in any form of agreement with them?” I ask Marissa. She looks up from biting her nails to meet my eyes.

“Nah, that bitch has lost her shit a while ago and has yet to find it,” Marissa replies with a careless shrug. “Chelsea’s just scared, she’ll come back once she regains her sense.”

I highly doubt that Chelsea has any sense to regain. She’s a fucking ditz that’s several cards short of a deck, and mostly just snaps her gum. I often wonder if John’s exchanged more than fluids with her, but haven’t worked up the courage to ask. Knowing John, he’ll make up some horror story where she was sucking his dick, got gum stuck in his pubes and had to smear peanut butter all over his junk to get it out. So not wanting to hear about that, because then I’ll never be able to look at peanut butter again, or bubble gum for that matter without the urge to retch, I don’t ask.

“And Olivia?” I press. “What’s your opinion on her?”

“She’s pretty wicked when she isn’t hiding,” Marissa says. “But before you jump to her defense, I know she has issues, I was going to graduate school for a degree in Psychology.” My eyes widen at that. Underneath all that hair sprayed brown hair is a brain, what the fuck is she doing with John? It’s as if she reads my mind when she rolls her eyes at me.

“Please, I’m not stupid, I most definitely do not have any expectations out of that pretty boy. It’s just for fun, and I’m a red blooded woman who has needs.” I laugh at that and see Tommy’s face flush with anger or jealousy out of the corner of my eye.

“You’re alright, Marissa,” I say with a genuine smile at the surprisingly pleasant woman. I’ve never really had a conversation before, since I figured that anyone who would willingly spend time with Kelly had to be just like her. Once again, it just goes to show that assumptions can be wrong.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she replies. “Must take a special girl to make your sulky self, charming.”

“What the hell?” I ask. “Do I have a freaking tattoo on my forehead that says,
‘Jared likes Olivia’
or some shit? Because you have to be the fifth person who’s said something like that.”

I don’t get a verbal response, but there sure are a hell of a lot of chuckles. I flip them all the double finger salute, which makes them laugh harder. Giving up on those assholes, I turn around and head toward the kitchen. Not having eaten since breakfast, I’m absolutely ravenous. I contemplate bringing some of the squirrel soup that was made to Cory, but decide against it. He can get his own and maybe then I can have five seconds alone with Olivia if I’m lucky. Odds are most definitely not in my favor.

Having scarfed down a bowl of lukewarm soup, I rinse my bowl with the bottle left on the counter and restack it beside the backpack. The water reminds me that the last time I fully submerged myself in water was at the lake, so I take a whiff of myself and though I don’t smell like roses, I don’t smell like ass either.

To be on the safe side, just in case I do have a minute alone with Olivia and not want to smell like a buffalo, I ask Whitney which of our precious gallons of water I can use to bathe. She points me to the back door, where I find several jugs with funnels on top, a few of which are still half filled with the rain from last night. Grabbing one of the jugs, I walk back into the house and enter the bathroom for a scrub down.

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I’m just rinsing off my sandalwood soap when I hear crashing outside. Tossing the towel down in my haste, I run out of the bathroom and look toward the living room.

“John?” I call out and don’t hear an answer. “Carlos? Oscar?” With every name I call out and no response, I run around a little faster. “Sarah?”

I start slamming doors in my haste until I reach Olivia’s room. Cory and her are still inside, her sleeping on the bed with her headphones buzzing, and Cory looking outside. I rush over to the window to see what he’s looking at. “Where the fuck is everyone? What’s going on?”

“That,” he answers and points to the group clustered in the moonlight.

“What the fuck?” I ask and he shrugs. “Stay here, and don’t let anyone in.”

“Please, no one is coming through that door without my explicit permission,” Cory says.

I pat his back and he follows me to take guard duty by the door. Once Cory’s situated in his position on the chair, with his gun and knives ready, I run back out of the room. Sprinting out the back door, I continue on to meet the group crowded around something near the woods. I pull out my hunting knife just to be safe, because I have no fucking idea what they’re all doing outside at night, but there must be something wrong for them to be doing so. Reaching the group, I pull Danny by his collar to spin him around.

“What the fuck is going on?” I demand. “Why is everyone outside? Are you all crazy?”

“No, just Kelly,” he answers.

“She’s been crazy,” I counter. Danny shakes his head.

“No, like asylum, needs a strait-jacket crazy,” he says and jerks his chin toward the group. Releasing my hold on him, I shove a few people out of the way to get into the center. That’s where I find Chelsea talking rapidly with her hands all over the place.

“She’s fucking nuts!” Chelsea says and bats her hands around. “I was a little scared that Olivia could be infected, so I followed Kelly, but then she just flipped! Saying that
‘the bitch has to die before she damns us for eternity.’ ‘Stealing all the men from her
.
’ ‘Tempting us to join the devil.’
All kinds of random shit, she’s lost her freaking marbles!”

“It’s alright,” Whitney replies and starts soothing a hysterical Chelsea. “You came back, and you’re fine now.” There are people talking over each other all around me.

“What the hell are you all doing outside?” I ask once I reach the center. Six people start rambling out answers, so I squeeze the bridge of my nose and point at Oscar to answer.

“We heard this chicka screaming,” he answers and jerks his chin at Chelsea.

“What the fuck? Have we not learned our lesson?” Oscar looks chagrined, as do several others, but I press on. “Fine, you followed your dumbass instincts and came running, then what?”

“We found her raving about the crazy bitch losing it in the woods,” Oscar says.

“Wait,” I order and hold up my hands. “When was this, and where is she now?”

“It was like an hour ago,” Chelsea replies with a sniffle. “When she started saying that she needed to
‘sacrifice the witch to save our souls
,
’
I ran back here. She’s lost it.”

“Olivia,” Carlos says at the same time I turn around and start toward the ranch.

As soon as I get a glimpse of it, I up my pace. We don’t have a fucking chimney and it’s smoking. Not just little puffs, this shit is blacker than the night sky and coming up thick in huge gusts. I hear screams from behind me, but only the crackling in front of me has my attention. And even that doesn’t stop me from smashing in the nearest window and climbing into the tar like smoke that comes pouring out. I land in a crouch and have to cough to clear my throat a little. Going down further to the tile of the bathroom floor, the air is a little less dense.

“Cory! Olivia?” I shout out and start coughing anew.

I don’t hear anything, so I push forward. Crawling on all fours, I reach for the handle to the door and immediately snatch it back as it comes in contact with the burning hot metal. I ignore the pain and use my sweatshirt to wrap around the handle and turn. More smoke comes pouring in and I see flames climbing up the right side’s walls in the hallway. I stay with my back to the opposite side, sidestepping my way toward the first door where Olivia and Cory were last time I spoke to him, which couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes ago. How the fuck this was set and spread that fast, I don’t know, nor do I care. What I do care about, is getting to that goddamn room to make sure they got out.

Once I’m close enough to see through the smoke, I find that there are flames are engulfing the door, a chair’s blocking the handle from turning, and the smell of gasoline is unmistakable; even through the combined scents of everything burning. Burnt plastic, rubber, hair and wood are amongst the midst. Fighting off my panic, I rip the jammed metal chair away, pull my booted foot back and kick through the flames to hit the door.

It does nothing but catch my pant leg on fire, so I pat it out with my stinging hands and run toward the kitchen. I feel the heat of the flames scorch my face, but I ignore it as I pick up my pace and skid to a stop near the counter. Grabbing as many jugs as I can carry, I run through the raging fire and get back to the bedroom door. Dumping each gallon on the flames, it puts enough of the blaze out for me to be able to kick the door in a little better. On the third kick, the melted hinges finally give way and I burst into the room with a cloud of flames licking up my at face. I brush it away and step over the charred wood to enter.

It’s hard to see with all the smoke filling the air, but I can make out a tall shape by the window. I run over and find that Cory has Olivia on the floor with a blanket over her face, while he’s trying to bash out the window with a club. The glass is smashed all over the floor, but there’s something blocking the way. I can’t tell what exactly, but it looks like burglar bars that I didn’t notice there earlier when I looked out, but vaguely recall them from the first day we came here and thought that they could protect us from wheezers. It looks like it wasn’t the wheezers we had to worry about.

“What the fuck?” I shout, and see Cory snap his eyes at me.

“You tell me,” he retorts and starts coughing.

“Later, let’s get the hell out of here.” When Cory nods his agreement, I get moving. Grabbing the bags on the floor, I sling them over my back before scooping up Olivia. She squirms a bit, but doesn’t fight me off, so I start walking out.

“Cory, get the fuck in front of me,” I demand and see him covering his face with his hoodie as he takes point.

I don’t pause to cover my own face, since I don’t have a hand to do so, and we need to get the hell out now. Cory’s already stumbling his way out, so I follow his lead. The hallway is completely engulfed if we were to use the back door, so we stick to the wall and head toward the living room. There’s fire climbing up the furniture and spreading to the ceiling, making me push Cory to go faster. He’s clumsy on his feet, so I pop Olivia up onto my shoulder in a fireman’s carry and sling an arm around his waist.