The Risen: Courage (19 page)

CHAPTER
23

I
didn’t sleep well. My mind was racing with the many different scenarios that could take place once I put whatever it is I am going to do in action. I don’t want to believe that Rhett has really chosen someone over our little fun bipolar family. I can’t believe it and it may just be my pride or maybe my ego spinning me in nervous circles. It might be both.

Sitting on the bike that once led their club down the streets of our small town, I am not at all trying to hide the fact that I’m watching the “fisher men” mingling on their wooden pews. Travis walks among them, keeping their rapt attention as if he is a movie star. The women blush as he passes when he acknowledges them while the ones he ignores glare with animosity and yearning for the same attention. His smile makes the men return it instantly with some hypnotic pull. His handshakes are firm, steady grips that reinforce his hold on these people, like his hold on Rhett.

The seat of J.D.’s bike is too wide for my hips, making me lean forward some to adjust my comfort. My feet can only reach the icy ground on the tips of my boots. Leaning across the tank to rest on the handlebars, I feel like a little girl on her father’s bike. It isn’t that far off in its theory.

“Arch a little more and we just might have a poster.” Law’s voice startles me as he catches me deep in thought. He too is staring across the courtyard at the mock church.

Aimes throws her leg over the bike near me, settling herself on its leather seat. It’s Rhett’s bike. If she did it to push someone’s buttons or simply because it was nearest to me, it’s hard to say. At least it was until she smiled and stretched, making a show of herself. She’s jumping on trip wires again and this bomb may take out the whole school.

“When did he get the new crew?” Lawless motions with his head towards the men standing near Travis as he ignores the double dare that Aimes is giving Rhett. The new men are doing their best to look as intimidating as our game-master and failing miserably. It’s almost comical to watch.

Rhett is aware of their actions. He randomly changes his stance and waits for the other men to rush to copy him. He smirks with each change as he toys with the men, playing with them and their insecurities. Some things never change.

“They have been here all morning,” I answer watching the show.

“Looks like Travis picked himself up a new God Squad.” Aimes leans back, making a lounge out of the bike. I’m curious to see just how much of her maneuvering the kickstand can balance.

Rhett’s bike is dark as pitch and seemed to always glow with the color. He wrapped his pipes long ago declaring chrome was for posers. Oddly enough, the more Rhett complained about chrome the more Lawless seemed to find a place to add it to his bike when he first brought it home. The only color on Rhett’s is their skull, but even it is done in darker tones than normal. If Aimes does something to drop the large Harley on this cement, there will be no hiding the evidence of it. Knowing Aimes, it could very well be her goal. She doesn’t like being ignored and has a very limited cache of what she wouldn’t do to get your attention.

Lawless reaches out a hand to steady the rocking bike as Aimes flips to a new position. “Question is why?” he asks once Aimes is momentarily settled.

“Think he knows we are on to what they did?” Aimes does arch as she asks her question. She finally has Rhett’s attention, but with his neutral face, it’s hard to read his opinions of her new throne. Arch your back just right on a man’s bike and you could almost ask for the world if you let him watch. I’m sure her boots are helping with her game.

Lawless shrugs turning from them, removing the attempt of a church from his sights and thoughts with the simple act of dismissal. “You have your keys?”

“Always.” I pat the side pocket of my winter coat. You learn quickly to keep such things handy. These days there is no time to rummage through a deep purse that would rival Poppins’. “Why?”

Lawless lets his hands stroll down the tank of J.D.’s bike as if it were a living thing under his fingers. “I want my bike back,” he says.

There is a longing to his voice that I may never understand. I learned long ago that these bikes are not simply a mode of transportation for them. To them, they are so much more. They are a personal extension of their own personalities in a way a car or truck could never encompass. Watching Lawless now, I am reminded of that.

“How’s her keys going to help you with that?” Aimes is positioned in such a way I’m not sure how she is even balancing on the bike much less how she is paying attention to the flow of conversation.

I finish the train of thought for her. “I’m going to drive us to the store where he left it.”

He smiles when I put the dots together. It takes years off of the many that have suddenly accumulated on us all. He is the playful tease of a boy who I met years ago again with the thought of his favorite toy being returned to him.

“Then, we are going to take a little spin through that neighborhood you found. I want to see this scene myself,” he says.

That I hadn’t expected. Aimes and I exchange nervous glances wondering where this is going.

“Why?” Aimes asks sitting up fully with the joy gone from trying to annoy Rhett.

Lawless looks over his shoulder to where Rhett is standing with his new crew and Rhett stares right back. “I just need to.” Lawless turns back to Aimes and I slowly and says, “I just need to know if what Marxx thinks is true before I make up my mind on what to do with him.”

The playfulness is gone like the warmth of a setting sun. One moment I was basking in his heat and now I’m shivering in his coldness. His eyes are dull and flat, ruining the amber smolder they can contain. It’s replaced by a gleam that resembles another man’s eyes when setting stones to paths no one wants to walk. J.D.’s ghost still walks among us all.

“You don’t really want to go down that road,” I whisper to him, fearing that Rhett can somehow magically hear us. I try to caution him with my eyes in a way I know my words won’t.

“You’re right,” he says before looking back over his shoulder with a lowered gaze. “I really don’t. But if I have to,” he shrugs, “then I have to.”

“You agreed to give me time.” My whispering is gone. The apprehension over what he is insinuating flutters inside me. “You have to at least let me try.”

Lawless says nothing as he walks from Aimes and I. He is no longer making promises or leaving any doors open for interpretations. He keeps his gaze on Rhett as he walks back towards the school. The same cold, calm look is returned to him as neither man is willing to look away first.

“Where are you going?” I call out across the courtyard hoping to break the standoff.

“To tell Marxx where we are going. I wouldn’t want for him to worry when half of us just disappear,” Lawless calls back and I know what nerve he is pulling. “Just be ready.” His slamming of the courtyard door is more final than any word he might have picked.

I can feel the intense gaze of Rhett without having to look at him. I know his interest is perked with what small pieces he was able to gather of our conversation and Lawless’ defiant gaze must have roused his curiosity. Either of those is never a good thing, but add them together, and it could be hazardous.

“Do you think he was bluffing?” Aimes has turned in an attempt to hide from Rhett. An almost white-blonde with pink streaks on top of blacked out bike stands out amazingly well in the grey courtyard making her attempt amusing.

“No,” I tell her shrinking in on myself without the same hope as she has. It’s startling how often one of the guys will poke the other and leave Aimes and I swimming in the muck of the aftermath.

“What are you going to do, now?” She asks me the same thing so many ask me. I have the same answer for her that I always have – no clue.

“What we do every night, Pinky.”

“Try to survive the world?”

“Exactly.”

“Hey Brain,” Aimes whispers, “is he looking over here?”

“Drop his bike and find out.” I climb from J.D.’s bike looking at her with a smirk. “I dare you.” I make my way to the large black truck I adopted long ago when a metallic crash echoes in the space that surrounds us. It cuts through all conversation leaving only the sound of Aimes’ boots as she runs to me leaving me stationary with shock.

“Run!” Aimes shouts as she passes me faster than I knew she could move with her laughter trailing behind her. I don’t look back. I run. The muck just deepened by meters.

CHAPTER
24

“I
can’t believe you dropped his bike.” I repeat the mantra I have been saying since Lawless came running to climb into the truck with our escape.

“You told me to!”

“I dared you to!”

“What’s the difference?”

Rolling my eyes I look at her shocked all over again when I think of what she has done. The only contribution to the conversation from Lawless has been random chuckles and the shake of his head.

“I’m glad this amuses you,” I say after hearing his most recent laugh.

“You really just dropped it?” Lawless asks her with a smile so wide it causes small wrinkles near his youthful eyes.

“Do not encourage her!” I scold them both like an exhausted mother. “We are going to have hell to pay when we get back.” I watch her mimic me while mockingly rocking her head back-and-forth. “Really?” I ask, completely exasperated.

“So I dropped his bike? I think you’re making this a bit more doomsday than it really is.” Aimes smiles sweetly at me, which does nothing for my battered nerves. “You know, since the doomsday preppers’ official holiday has already come and forgot to go, I think the worst case scenario has already played itself out.”

“Law, if Selma dropped your bike, what would you do?” I match Aimes’ smile with my question and watch as his amber eyes sway from me to Aimes with caution.

He doesn’t answer me and it swipes the smile from Aimes’ pink lips. I let the silence and the new guarded mood permeate the truck’s cabin with an I-told-you-so smug manner. I would love to let it carry for the full trip, but I have no idea where we are going. We were in such a hurry to find the freedom from Aimes’ stunt that we never held the discussion of where I am supposed to take us.

“Where are we going?” Aimes breaks the silence with the same thing I was wondering.

“You’re heading in the right direction.” Lawless scans the landscape looking for familiar sights to help him navigate our path. The new, subtle touches of winter are not being helpful.

The red light ahead sits dead and dull like its surrounding area. The four-way is silent, peaceful with the thin layer of ice adding shimmer to the area. I’ve been around the high school for so long, this almost feels like a mini-vacation. The air is perfumed with the winter pines that stand tall and majestic against the early afternoon sun. It’s days like this that winter lures you out to appreciate her beauty. It’s days like this that life lures you out to be her victim.

“Pick one,” Aimes is watching something behind us in the rearview mirror with dread. “Pick one soon.”

Lawless and I both turn to look through the back glass with curiosity. My peace-filled mindset is crushed by what I see. The road behind us is clustered with scowling faces, sunken and tight, with grey skin and decrepit bodies. They balance on tattered, flesh-bare legs and feet which are being forced to continue to travel forward. The clothing that remains is timeworn and destroyed by nature’s temperament. It hangs loosely to concaved features, swinging with their movement. They stalk forward with deep growls of hunger like a pack of starved wolves. As they fill the street behind us, my basic primal desire to survive flares to life.

“Pick one Lawless!” Aimes shouts as more come from the thick pines around us.

I’m not waiting on him. We are going left.

The tires slip with the sudden command to move, shuddering the large truck before they catch on the street. Her engine roars with the command from my foot, pulling us forward as if she too fears what is coming for us.

Aimes never takes her eyes from the forms behind us. I never look back being forced to keep my attention on fighting this beast to stay on the iced road. Her heavy weight steadies her some, but without any traffic to wear through the slick coat of ice, we are mostly sliding forward. My fear won’t let me release the steady pressure from the gas pedal and the more gas I feed her, the more unstable she becomes.

“Steer into it. Stop oversteering.” Lawless has wedged himself against the dash and the bench seat bracing for the crash he already sees coming. I would flip him off, but I need both hands to control the truck.

“You can slow down.” Aimes clamps a hand on my thigh to reach through my panic and my mood. “They have stopped running.”

I spare a glance from the road to the rear mirror for a second and see the proof myself. Whatever intelligent life operates them has seen that they aren’t going to reach us. With their bodies only able to withstand so much due to their level of decay, they have begun to go back to the “sleeping” state as they wait for another chance. Only their eyes move now as they watch us take the bend in the road. There is no panic like we would feel if we were watching what might be our last chance for food escape. There is no sense of depression or fear over what they will do to survive, as our nature would have us feeling. They stand watching and waiting; waiting for our return.

There is no more conversation as we drive. Lawless is slumped against the passenger door with secret thoughts. Aimes shifts randomly, searching the area around us for any movement. Everyone is tense after our little not-so-subtle reminder that this isn’t a vacation or mini-escape at all. It’s just another day in paradise, if paradise has become the Devil’s playground while God wasn’t watching. With what is waiting for us with the mock wooden cross back “home”, he might have.

“How much further?” Aimes asks Lawless after her latest round of “I spy” with the trees. “I thought you walked back?”

“We turned the wrong way,” he reluctantly says.

“We have to go back?”

“We have to go back.” I answer for him coming to the conclusion of what I should have done from the beginning. I let the truck coast slowly, shutting the engine off when she finally comes to a full stop. Tossing the keys across the cabin I say, “You drive.”

He nods at me allowing me to not admit how scared I am about having to turn the truck around. If the ice doesn’t take us out, will what’s waiting for us in the middle of the road? Let’s not answer that.

He exits the cab, layering himself with resolve as he walks around the truck. That same calm numbness I pull from when walking into the fights he now uses to armor himself. By the time he reenters the truck, he is a wall as icy as the road under us. His eyes land everywhere but upon Aimes and I as he turns the truck around. His resolve is only as thick as we allow it to be, and if we were to look into his eyes, it would call that bluff.

“Plan?” Aimes asks never the one afraid to break any layer of silence.

“We are going bowling.” Lawless is shifting through the gears faster than I would feel secure doing with the hazards around us and the truck roars with the freedom he is giving her.

“I was afraid that was what you were going to say.” Aimes replies as her and I both begin to slide down to the floor with his announcement.

He laughs a devilish sound seeing us both begin to retreat from his madness. “The truck is high enough that it will clip them at chest level. We will ride right over them like weeds with these tires.”

“But it won’t kill them?” I ask worried with how each one we leave alive seems to find us later for retribution and with friends.

“Some, but it won’t kill us either,” he calmly replies. “Might mess up your paint.” He sways his eyes to me for a brief second, flashing me the smile that used to melt the hardest hearts of women and the lower areas of those not so stubborn.

“It won’t kill me,” I tell him even as I feel myself instinctively sliding lower.

He smiles that dangerous smile again as he shifts into the final gear. The thunderous engine noise from the truck excites the forms in front of us. I watch as they smile an eerily smile similar to the one Lawless is wearing. His white teeth almost gleam against his natural coloring of tanned skin. He has locked his arms to brace for the first impact that is only moments away at this speed. The noise from Aimes acts as a timer with it growing louder the closer we approach the intersection filled with what was once those who lived in the surrounding homes. I close my eyes and brace more mentally than physically to what is about to happen. The last image I let slip into my mind is their arms slowing rising to reach for the truck.

Lawless is cursing softly with each exhale and I hear him laugh as the first jolt strikes us with such force my body rocks with it. It’s followed promptly by many more with each body the truck is forcing under its chrome grill. I try to convince myself that it is just large pieces of missing road the tires are bouncing over. It’s not what is left of those who I may have just walked through their homes. I try, but Lawless isn’t helping to seal the mental bargaining attempt with his maniacal laughter.

The back tires start to glide. The bed of the truck fights to come around even as the grill continues to feed the tires more bodies. Lawless is no longer laughing as he fights the truck, which makes me squeeze my eyes and my body tighter, fully expecting this ride to come to a crashing conclusion. The ones not in the direct path beat against the truck as we drive past. If we crash now, they will overtake us quickly as our bodies recover from the crash. Dazed and what’s for dinner doesn’t sound very inspiring for a death certificate.

The smell of their destruction is filtering into the truck. The dark blood they spill carries the acidic scent of rotting meat. Their limbs are fracturing and tearing under the large tires. They spray the windows with black fluid and pieces of thicker things. I can hear it hitting with the sound of defiant rain, splattering and covering the truck. The sounds and the smell churn the small meal from breakfast in my stomach. It climbs the back wall of my throat, gagging me as I swallow against it. The jolting slows, leaving only the back tires to bounce one final time declaring our victory. The truck shudders as we escape as if she is as disgusted as I am by her new paint.

Lawless exhales the tension from his body. He rolls his shoulders, hoping to relax them from the stress of fighting the truck to stay on the gore and ice mixed road. “You two can sit up now.” He is amused and smiling down to where Aimes and I have somehow managed to completely slip under the dash of the truck.

“I’m good here.” Aimes is as troubled as I am over what just happened. Our minds filled in the images we hid from with each bounce the tires delivered and with each pounding of palms across and even under the truck. Add another page to the storybook of my nightmares please, Sir.

Lawless looks at me with his impish smirk and I know where his male mind is already venturing staring at me by his knees. With a roll of my eyes, I climb from the newly invented hiding spot. He shrugs still watching me and still wearing that smile.

My stomach is aflame again. This new limitation is starting to annoy me. If we did have to run for our lives right now, I don’t know if I could. I don’t know if Lawless or Aimes could leave me behind either. My injury could cost us not only my life, but those who I love, too. Yet, I am still the first to jump into each new fray, even inventing a few as I go for added measures of karmatic justice.

Lawless reaches with his free hand to pull me into his space of his arm. I slide into his pocket of warmth, letting him cradle me as I fight to hide the pain. “You should be resting,” he says, whispering into my hair slipping us both into another time when life was all about these moments of comfort.

“…and leave you without Zombie Barbie?” I make a joke out of my constant turn of bad luck.

“You’ve clocked your timecard ZB,” Aimes calls from still under the dash. “Let’s not go overachiever on us and try for overtime. Okay?”

“We haven’t even reached the store, yet?” Lawless teases her, trying to coax her to the bench seat again.

“Exactly!” she says retreating deeper into the small space like a startled animal.

“How much further?” I ask, fighting through the waves of flames from the flesh of my stomach.

“It’s already opening up,” he says.

I look to where Lawless is driving to watch the small road widen as buildings begin to appear. Abandoned office spaces expand to larger abandoned buildings where commerce took root providing a way of life for the area.

We have already learned where there are larger spaces there are larger chances that we will not be the only things around. The virus took hold of people in the middle of their everyday life. People fell victim at work, on errands, at schools and now we are driving into the heart of so many of those activities with one hiding, one injured and one growing more manic by the day. The A-Team, we are not.

In the darker corners where the sun can’t quite reach, snow has piled into some spots of the larger parking lot we turn into. It’s a collaboration of shared rows of white lines between the many stores that once owned this spot. The type of place most would try to avoid during holiday hours and crowded weekends because of the long row after row of vehicle torture to park. It is a different type of torture to see them all empty. Like thrill-seekers who continue to ignore the warnings around them, we drive right through the same long rows ignoring their silent warnings. It’s only thrilling to one person and that person’s thrills are becoming darker as he discovers more needs to vent against.