The Dead Survive (6 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Quinn came by often to play for Melissa. After one visit, we left Melissa reading in the living room and went to the kitchen. I got some leftover biscuits from the cupboard and a small container of rough butter from inside the inoperable refrigerator. It wasn’t that good, but Liz had found some books, and a few of the women had “adopted” a cow and some goats, and were learning. When the salvaged solar panels were installed, and the wind turbine the construction team had devised was complete, we might have enough electricity in this area of the Compound to run small appliances, and maybe keep a few things refrigerated.

I also spotted a bottle of honey and added that to our snack on the table. “I love to hear her sing,” I said, drizzling honey on a biscuit. “She’s still not talking, but I think she will, in time.”

He took a bite of a biscuit, then dabbed honey from his chin. “I think she will too. She’s not afraid of me anymore.” This was accompanied by a buttery grin. “And she seems a little more interested in what’s going on and what people are doing.”

I agreed.

He continued, “Ellen, have you noticed the way she moves her fingers sometimes when she’s singing?”

I thought about it a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I’m too busy watching her face light up when she sings. Why? Do you think she’s playing air guitar?”

Quinn gave a slight snort. “No, not air guitar, but I’ve got a hunch.” He swallowed a second biscuit almost whole, chasing it with a glass of water. “Wait here about ten or fifteen minutes, then bring her to the blue house across from my place, okay?”

I was confused, but agreed. He was almost buzzing with excitement, and I wondered what he was planning. He scooted out the back door, and I went to tell Melissa we were going out for a while. I didn’t see the look of apprehension she usually wore when I told her we needed to go somewhere, and I couldn’t hold back my smile.

When we got to the blue house, Quinn led us to the living room where an upright piano gleamed against one wall. “I saw it when I was working on the windows. I asked, but none of the people who live here know how to play.” He smiled at Melissa. “I bet she does.”

I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right. Again. Melissa stared at the piano for a moment, a look of wonder spreading across her face, before approaching it reverently and seating herself on the bench. Her fingers hovered over the keys, and she began to play. I recognized hymns, among some more recent popular songs, and a few of the house’s residents appeared to listen. After a while, Quinn ushered them to the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later with a proud grin on his face.

“The piano is hers. I’ll get a couple of guys to help me move it tonight.”

“Really? How did you talk them into that?” I could barely contain my happiness for the frightened, damaged, but healing girl seated at the keyboard.

“No big deal. I’m going on a scouting trip tomorrow, and I promised to look for a few things for them.”

I couldn’t help it. I burst into tears and gave him another hug, this one even tighter than before. Quinn walked us back to our house, and I thought he might shed a tear or two himself when Melissa timidly slipped her hand into his as they walked.

He helped us move some furniture around to clear the perfect spot for Melissa’s piano, and I asked him to stay for dinner. Just as the last dish was cleared, his friends showed up, rolling the piano up the sidewalk on scavenged furniture dollies.

Melissa beamed and bounced on her toes as the instrument was carefully positioned in the living room. Quinn stayed and listened to her play for an hour before he went home to pack his gear and get some rest for his journey.

He left on his expedition the next day, searching for tools and parts he needed to help maintain the various pieces of machinery at the Compound. He took four men with him, but I was still worried.

We withstood attacks almost every day, whether small groups of zombies or looters, or larger zombie swarms, and I’d seen Quinn fight many times. That was, in part, why it was so hard for me to get past my underlying fear of him. He fought wildly, with deadly accuracy and little regard for his own safety. If an attack came when he didn’t have advance notice to put on his makeshift armor, I could see that demon tattoo on his back, glistening with sweat and splashes of blood.

He’d never been anything but kind to me, and he’d shown incredible compassion for Melissa. Still, I retained enough foolish stereotypes from our fallen society to make me equate “men like him” with danger. I didn’t feel threatened when I was with him—quite the opposite. But if I caught a glimpse of him across the Compound, or doing weapons training in the field at the end of the street, I sometimes felt a shudder of foreboding.

After allowing myself to touch him those few times, for those hugs I probably needed more than he did, I wondered exactly what danger he truly posed to me. I found myself both anticipating and dreading his return. I was doing better interacting with the general male population. They were all very respectful, and even though I knew that could just be the face they chose to present to the world, none of them struck the chord of menace in my core that Quinn did when I first laid eyes on him. I got more confused when I realized that probably said a lot more about me than it did about him.

***

It was nearing dusk a little over a week later when a commotion broke out near the main gate. It was more fortified now, but remained a regular target of attack by both determined zombies and what we now called marauders. Though I’d been trained in basic battle skills, I wasn’t a regular combatant. I was stronger from all the physical work, but my resolve was still too unpredictable, and when I explained this to the council, they’d agreed I would better serve in a supporting role. That evening, I went to find out what we were facing, and if there was anything I could do to help.

I was shocked to see Quinn and his party emerge from the forest and race toward the gate, with a small, mixed group of zombies and marauders converging on them. I surmised the marauders had staged an ambush, hoping to steal whatever our scavengers had collected, and the zombies had been nearby and attracted by the noise and motion.

Quinn was running, carrying a large cloth bundle, when the first marauder closed in on him. He quickly deposited the bundle at the base of a large tree, and turned on his attacker. I watched Quinn fight, whirling, swinging his machete with deadly intent.

This appeared to be a less well-established band of marauders, as only one of them had a firearm. He pointed his weapon at Quinn, and I screamed a warning, though I was sure he’d never hear me over the din. Quinn’s companion, Marcus, noticed the situation at the last instant and raised his bow. He wasn’t in time. The marauder pulled the trigger, but the weapon bucked and misfired. The man clutched his injured hand to his chest, and was then taken out by Marcus’s well-placed arrow.

The threat of a gun now neutralized, Quinn turned his attention to three nearby marauders, who were armed with what I’d learned in weapons training were Bowie knives. They were no match for Quinn’s machete, and he dispatched them all with powerful strikes to the head, before the first zombie reached him.

His team was also fighting, taking on a final pair of marauders and a few remaining zombies. I watched one of the men fall, a large slash wound to his thigh. Quinn came to his defense and swung his machete, spilling the marauder, and most of his entrails, to the ground. I was sickened, but couldn’t turn away until the last threat had been eliminated. It felt like ages, but was probably only minutes before the flow of zombies from the forest seemed to be exhausted.

Quinn returned to the tree to get his bundle while his friends raced for the gate, only to have one more zombie emerge from the cluster of trees and lunge for him, clutching at his arm before Quinn jerked and sent the zombie staggering past. He turned and swung a final time, and the zombie’s head left its body and fell to the ground, rolling to a stop in a clump of grass. I didn’t know what was in that bundle, but it had nearly cost Quinn his life.

Once the team was safely within the Compound’s walls, I hurried to find Quinn, where he and Marcus were reporting to the guard captain. A crowd gathered around them, and I couldn’t get close, but I could see him. As the crowd quieted, I heard the conversation.

Marcus bent, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. “Hit a booby trap about a mile out,” he told the captain. He straightened and accepted a water bottle from one of the wall guards, drank deeply, then continued. “Blew two tires on the truck.”

Quinn nodded in agreement. “Was kind of a dumb spot for a trap, though. Farther away, they could’ve cut us off and taken everything we had. But we had a straight shot back here, and ran like hell.”

“Why didn’t you beat their asses and be done with it? And why’d they chase you all the way into the field?” the captain asked, scratching his head. “They should’ve let you run and gone back and offloaded the truck and made tracks.”

“Beats me,” Marcus said. “We were set to fight, but some dead ones showed up, so we took off. Decided to just head straight here and get a crew to come out, see if we could catch ’em before they got away with the supplies.”

Quinn offered an opinion. “I figure they started running from the zombies like we were. But they didn’t seem too bright, so maybe they got caught up in the chase and thought if they could catch us, they could stop us from bringing reinforcements.”

Marcus snorted. “Not too bright, I’d say. If they’d caught up with us, they’d have just got dead sooner.” He looked at Quinn for confirmation and received a nod and a high-five. “I don’t think they knew how close we were to the Compound. They maybe know the roads, but we cut off on the logging trail, took a quarter mile off the distance.”

The guard captain seemed satisfied and asked for specifics of their disabled vehicle’s location, then turned and barked some orders. A retrieval crew was sent out immediately, since they determined most, if not all of the marauders had been killed as our team made their way to the gates. The zombies, well…those were just a bonus.

Quinn’s gaze swept the growing crowd, searching. When he saw me, he broke into a grin and began forging a path in my direction. I found an open spot in someone’s side yard and waited, my entire body trembling. When he emerged from the last group of people, I couldn’t help it. I flung myself at him. He saw me approaching at warp speed and quickly placed the bundle down, just in time for me to fly into his arms. He swept me up, and I buried my face against his neck. Then I leaned back and smacked him on the shoulder.

“You almost got killed! Whatever’s in that damned pack isn’t worth getting bitten or shot!”

He opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment a tiny, thin whimper drifted up from the bundle at his feet. I froze. Had he been hunting, but his prey had recovered from its near-death experience? No.
It couldn’t be
.

Quinn set me on my feet and bent to unfasten one end of the squirming bundle. A brown and white head appeared, and I fell to my knees. I couldn’t believe it; I had to be dreaming.

It was Skip. Quinn had found my dog.

I started to grab for him, to pull the pack away, but Quinn put a hand on my arm.

“Go easy,” he said. “He’s hurt.”

Time slowed as I gently tugged back the canvas folds. When fully unwrapped, I saw an ugly, oozing wound on Skip’s right shoulder. He held that foreleg tucked up against his chest, but his tail thumped on the ground and his eyes fixed on me, communicating his recognition and pleasure at our improbable reunion.

We rushed him across the street to our medical clinic, where the man with the leg wound was being stitched up. Skip was examined, while I cried with what I wasn’t sure was worry or relief. Quinn never left my side.

Courtney, who was running the clinic that day, emerged about twenty minutes later. The verdict was Skip had taken a bullet, deflected by his shoulder. There was some damage to the joint, but after the wound had been cleaned and debrided, everyone thought he’d recover, though he might have a bit of a limp if he had scar tissue or bone chips interfering with free movement of the joint.

I didn’t care, and I might have babbled a bit as I thanked her profusely. Skip was alive, and we were together. He was a precious piece of my life from before, and I could scarcely believe it.
Quinn did this for me
. He’d remembered my plea, and made a point to find him, and to bring him home. I knew Matt was gone, and my parents likely were too. But now I had Skip, and Melissa, and maybe even Quinn.

While I waited for Skip to come out of the light sedation, Quinn went to Josh’s house to get some extra dog supplies. He brought some food and two battered stainless steel bowls, and an old sofa cushion he thought would make a comfortable dog bed.
I could kiss him
, I thought.

So I did.

I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised. His arms tightened around me during the initial impact of my celebratory kiss, then loosened as if to give me space to escape if I wanted. As our mutual surprise abated, the kiss turned less wildly impulsive and more deliberate and exploratory. He was careful, I could tell, to let me set the pace, and I was grateful. When I drew back, I could feel the heat in my face. I also saw the dazed, slightly awe-struck expression on his.