Survival Paranoia (Survival series) (5 page)

Tension continued to rise between the teens as spring
gave way to summer. Their tempers shorted as the thermometers rose, and Lorna found herself guiltily wishing she’d never gone back for him. He would have eventually left the shed on his own… she was sure of it. Well, she was
almost
sure, anyway. But while going back for him had netted her quite a bit of gear, it had also brought with it problems she’d never thought she’d have to deal with from him.

He seemed to have found his balls, she thought crudely as she ducked into another house to check for supplies. He actually
had the nerve to demand that she wait for him to check the surrounding houses in Blades, saying that she needed him in case things got too difficult for her to handle. So since she always woke before he did, she slipped out the back door of the little home they were using as a temporary refuge and made her own way. She’d be damned if he’d treat her like some wilting flower that needed to be tended and cooed over. She handled herself just fine, and carried his ass when he needed the backup. If she needed help, she’d
ask
for it.

There was only one zombie to contend with, and she dispatched the old man with
a wince. He smelled like death… ha ha… and was wearing only a pair of filthy briefs that had
probably
been white once upon a time. The bite was extremely obvious. Something had gnawed the hell out of his stomach, and had either eaten the organs once contained there, or they were lying on the floor of the house like some grisly trophy. She didn’t care about that, however. What mattered was that nothing was moving. Sadly, that ‘nothing’ included something that had probably been feline once upon a time. She ignored that, too, and searched the pantry for anything of worth, coming up with two canned hams and an economy-size can of spaghetti with the nasty meatballs inside. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

That done, she decided she deserved some time to herself to just think. Jeff never left her alone anymore, and she was seriously considering bashing him one good time with the heavy flashlight she carried. She’d found it in the house they were currently staying in, and
was pleasantly surprised to find the batteries were still good. It illuminated the houses she checked well enough, but it also worked great as a blunt instrument… as the old man who’d been a resident here could attest, were his brains not leaking onto the linoleum.

Lorna was a virgin. She intended to remain one. She didn’t consider herself any certain religion, nor even particularly religious, but she was a spiritual person. It helped when she felt neglected by her parents to think some higher power was testing her, and He had rules that a decent person kept to. One of those rules was that
sex outside of marriage was a sin, and Lorna could see how that might be. She’d read the Bible a few times, and sex caused problems. Not to mention the more modern worries… teen pregnancy, STD’s, or just a damaged reputation.

She wanted to wait for marriage. It seemed silly to some people, but to her it was impor
tant. She might not stick to it. Maybe she’d meet someone she was madly in love with, and her thoughts and feelings might change. She was still young, after all. She might decide it was foolish to think that it mattered if sex came before marriage or after it. But for now that was the way she felt, and Jeff had never pushed her on that.

Until the night before, that was. He’d hinted about it a few weeks ago, and he was a little too hands-on for her tastes. She either ignored it or pushed him away, and he normally
backed off, laughing and teasing as he did so. But the night before he’d gotten all serious, and she’d started to fear for his sanity.

“Lorna, we could be the last two people left on Earth,” he said earnestly, leaning forward as though to drive his point home. “God wouldn’t hold you to a promise in those circumstances. In fact, it’s our duty to repopulate the Earth.” His sea green eyes had been so sincere that it worried her. She wanted to laugh at him, but she knew that might be risky under the circumstances.

Instead, Lorna leaned away from him, casually sitting with her legs tucked underneath her like she was trying to get comfortable. Her brown eyes took in everything. The way he held his body, his facial expression, the gleam in his eyes as he watched her like a starving fox nearing a hen house. She knew he was a virgin, too, and there were lines they never crossed. Apparently he’d decided to push his luck,
and
those boundaries.

“Jeff, we just saw a couple walking by last night,” she said calmly. She did
n’t want to yell. He was so strange these days that she didn’t dare risk saying anything else that might piss him off.

He shook his head, smiling at her like she was a child who had said something silly, and she bristled at the implied insult. “We don’t even know that those two were
human
,” he said, and her belly went cold. They’d been talking, and they didn’t move anything like zombies. They looked around furtively, and the man had kissed the top of the woman’s head. They were people, but he was working to convince himself that they were alone. That was scarier to her than a herd of those things chasing her.

Lorna shook herself out of her remembrance. S
he didn’t have time to sit idle. He’d be up soon, and she needed to talk him into finding a safe spot to settle down. Surely by now there would be survivor camps set up somewhere not too far. She knew they weren’t alone out here, and she felt the need to hide behind the safety of numbers. The problem was, it was
Jeff
she wanted protection from, and that made her furiously angry. How dare he make her feel this way? A man took no for an answer. He didn’t try to change a woman’s mind, or force himself on an unwilling woman. She’d heard him say so in the past whenever a rape story made the local news. She feared for her body, but she feared for
his
sanity, as well.

They needed to find others, or she had decisions to make. She considered as she gathered the few items worth carrying back with her and prepared to head back to the house. She could kill him, but she was loathe to kill a person unless absolutely. It already felt like murder to kill those things
that should be dead but weren’t. Killing someone who could plead for their life might be beyond her. She thought about just sneaking out while he slept, maybe even slipping him a sleeping pill with dinner, but she didn’t want to risk running into him down the road if she turned on him that way.

Whatever she was going to do she needed to do it soon, Lorna decided as she opened the back door of ‘their’ house and carried the supplies inside. Things would only go downhill from here, and he was rapidly forcing her to make a decision that wouldn’t go in his favor. She pasted on a smile as she saw him waiting for her in the kitchen, looking like an angry husband
whose wife went shopping and didn’t clear it with him first. Oh yes, decisions would
have
to be made, because the thought of living with him acting like this for another few months made being zombie food look more and more appealing. At least
they
wouldn’t nag.

It wasn’t long after Lorna made her demand to search for a survival camp that they stumbled across the motel. It was nestled alongside the highway in Georgetown, and the parking lot was crammed to bursting with cars. Even as they hunkered down and observed through a pair of binoculars passed back and forth, they saw movement. One man held the door, gun at the ready, as a slim teenager darted out. The child… they couldn’t tell if the teen was male or female from this distance… went to a sporty blue car across the lot, snatched up a duffel bag from the seat, and moved back towards the room quickly. It was a well-oiled act, and she could tell they’d worked together before.

“Let’s go check it out,” Lorna said, excitement causing her big, brown eyes to sparkle.
She let herself consider the surroundings. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there
might
even be electricity. She could actually enjoy a
shower
, she had thought with a quick grin. Her hair hung limp and tangled, even with the brush she’d managed to pocket before fleeing the institution. It was a bark brown shade now, and the blond highlights she was so proud of were hidden beneath untold layers of filth.

Jeff crossed his arms over his chest, stubbornly shaking his head in negation. “Fuck that,” he said coldly. “You don’t know what kind of people they are, or even how many are actually th
ere. We might be shot on sight. We don’t exactly look like regular people, you know,” he added with a sneer.

Lorna was driving that day, so she didn’t truly care
what
his opinion was on the matter. What was he going to do, after all? Fight her for control of the wheel? Unlikely… but not entirely out of the equation. She needed to convince him that they should connect with others before he said something even more stupid.

He’d pushed for sex again last night, and she’d actually punched him in the stomach. He seemed to think if he clouded her mind with hormones she’d change her mind. Little did he know that she found him so repulsive at the moment that he couldn’t cloud her mind with a fog machine. The idea of doing
anything
with him made her ill. She’d loved him with all her heart once, and the change made her sad. But that didn’t change facts. He wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. Their current circumstances proved that.

“Well,
I
want to go check it out,” Lorna said, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. She brushed her hair back impatiently, struggling to keep her cool. “I want to see other people, and who knows? Maybe they’ll allow us into their group. There’s safety in numbers.”

Jeff glared at her, and there was a gleam in his eyes t
hat she’d seen too often lately. It was the cold light of insanity creeping in and making itself at home in the corners of Jeff’s mind, and it terrified Lorna. It she couldn’t talk him into staying here, she’d have to abandon him and find her own way back later. “They’re probably a group of crazy people,” he told her, an air of superiority in his voice that made her shiver. He’d been this way lately, too. The whole, ‘me man, you just girl’ attitude. “They’ll be disorganized and hold us back. I can keep you safe.
They’ll
only get you killed. But by all means,” he said, gesturing grandly towards the motel, “go check it out if you want your brains leaking out your ears. I’m sure they won’t
mean
to shoot us.”

That was more than enough for Lorna.
She didn’t give two shits how the group at the motel was set up. She needed someone
else
watching Jeff. She hadn’t slept a solid night in four days, and she could barely eat. He watched her like a cat sitting patiently at a mouse hole, like he had all day to wait for her to screw up or change her mind about her feelings. She couldn’t take it much more. Last night she’d even clutched a knife like a teddy bear, sure she’d have to kill him. She turned the SUV into the motel’s parking lot and killed the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition in case they needed to escape quickly. Or rather, in case
she
did. She wouldn’t be taking him with her when she left this place.

Lorna
sat in the quiet and studied the motel. They were the long, interconnected style, only one level with all the rooms featuring connecting doors that could be locked on either side. Chicken fencing was on the outside of each window. As the curtains twitched and they could feel eyes upon them, it became clear that the inside of the rooms had wire as well. Smart, Lorna thought with admiration, very smart way to defend their position. She was more anxious than ever to find out about these people.

She slowly opened the door and climbed out, hands held out and visible so they understood she meant them no harm. “Hello,” she called quietly, knowing they could hear her. “I’m Lorna, and this is Jeff. We’re alone, and we don’t mean any harm. We’ve been on our own since this all happened, and we’re looking for survivors. May we come in?”

She heard the door open and Jeff climbed out, but she didn’t look at him. She waited for them to make a decision, and she prayed these people would let them in. She was so tired, and she
missed
people. She never thought she would, but times had changed and so had she.

A door slammed behind her and she jumped, nearly falling over.
Jeff smirked, pocketing the keys as he crossed his arms and looked at her. The SUV was surprisingly quiet for such a large vehicle, and they traveled mostly unmolested by the undead, but the sudden loud noises drew them. “You
asshole
,” she growled under her breath as the first zombie headed their way. This one had been young before being bitten, and she had apparently been in great shape. She nearly sprinted their way, and Lorna was terrified.

One of the doors opened, and a rifle became visible. Lorna tensed, waiting for them to fire for drawing the zombies their way. A teenage boy, not much younger than she, stuck his head out and hollered, “Get in here, and hurry.”
The rifle discharged, and she heard a grunt from behind them as she raced for the door he held open.

That was how Lorna came to meet Chet and the fifteen other survivors settled into the motel.